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ay 



“I SEEN YOU BEFORE SOMEWHERE, AIN’T I?” [Page io8.] 





THE CAVE OF THE 
BOTTOMLESS POOL 


BY 

HENRY GARDNER HUNTING 

Author Witter Whitehead' s Own Story" 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

H. s. Delay 





NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1909 


\ ^ 


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'IJ\ 


'A'’'- 


r. 0 

0, u 




Copyright, 1909, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 


Published, October, iQOq 


248462 


TO 

RED ED. 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Prisoner Escaped i 

II The Shadow at the Window 17 

III On the Trail of a Hawk 32 

IV A Tell-tale Straw Hat 46 

V In the Heart of the Rocks 62 

VI The Man Who Climbed 77 

VH A Many-sided Puzzle 91 

VHI On the Woods Road 106 

IX Old Enemies 121 

X The Bottomless Pool 135 

XI Cave Dwellers 149 

XH A Night Awake 165 

XHI The Dog That Disappeared 179 

XIV A Message by Water 194 

XV A Painful Surprise 209 

XVI PuLL-AWAY IN EARNEST 225 

XVII Two Prisoners 240 

XVHI A Wrestling Match 254 

XIX Recognition 270 

XX That Two-dollar Bill 285 









ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 


“I Seen You Before Somewhere^ Ain^t I?” 

Frontispiece 

“Rick!” I Cried^ “Just Look at This, Quick! 

Morse Has Escaped!” i6 

I Turned and Threw It as Hard as I Could 

Right at the Window 134 

“Eve Got You at Last, Benny, Old Boy!” 258 








THE CAVE OF 
THE BOTTOMLESS POOL 

CHAPTER I 

A PRISONER ESCAPED 

In the story I wrote about the silver robbery 
at Fleming’s store, which happened when I was 
working there, I told about a policeman named 
Mr. Benson, who helped to catch the thieves, and 
who was very good to me. He was promoted to 
be a captain of police that summer, and I didn’t 
see him very often after that for a long while, be- 
cause that was the year my father, who is an in- 
ventor, sold some of his patents to some men in 
England for a great deal of money, and he sent 
me away to school in the fall. 


2 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

I promised to tell another story about how my 
knowing Mr. Benson happened to get me into an- 
other very queer adventure — one that was even 
more exciting than the first one with Morse, the 
robber who pretended to be blind, and all the gang 
who tried to get Mr. Midgely into trouble. I 
know you will think the way it came was very 
queer. 

It was before school was out in the spring of 
that year, that father and mother came up to St. 
Croix, where the academy was, and told me that 
they were going to England because the men who 
had bought the patents wanted to see father. 
They wanted me to go with them at first, but I 
didn’t want to go at all, and I just begged them 
to let me stay at home and go camping with some 
of the boys who were to be taken to Little Fern 
Lake by one of the academy teachers, Mr. Lally. 
And father finally said I might, after he had 
talked with Mr. Lally and had arranged that I 
was to go down into the country to my Aunt 
Margaret’s farm after the camping was over. 


A Prisoner Escaped 3 

Maybe you think I wasn't glad to get permis- 
sion to go on that camping expedition. I thought 
there would be more fun than I’d ever had in my 
life, though we had lots of fun at the Academy, 
too. But, after father and mother had left, and 
while we were having the June examinations, the 
strange thing happened that made that summer 
such a different one for me from what anyone 
could ever have expected. 

One day, about a week before school was out, 
and when exams were just closing, Rick Neufer, 
who goes to St. Croix, too, came into my room 
after study hours and said he was tired and 
wanted to have some fun. 

‘‘To-morrow it will be Saturday,” he said, “and 
I’m going to get a boy named Witter White- 
head to go out into the country with me — a kite to 
fly.” 

I laughed, for he doesn’t get over saying things 
funny. Of course, it was just a joke to talk about 
Witter Whitehead to my face, as if it was some- 
body else than me. But he is German, and he 


4 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
tries so hard to talk English just right that he 
makes very queer-sounding sentences. 

But kite-flying sounded good to me, and I said 
so, and I guess it wasn’t five minutes before we 
had commenced work on a dandy big kite that 
we meant to take with us. 

Of course, you like to make kites out of tissue- 
paper best, unless they are very big ones, but we 
didn’t have any tissue, and we decided that we’d 
rather use newspapers for this one, instead of 
waiting till we could go down into town to buy the 
other kind. And it was on account of our doing 
just that, and while we were in the midst of put- 
ting the newspaper on the kite-frame, that I saw 
the printed article which really started our ad- 
venture. 

We had laid the kite down on the floor in my 
room and had pasted the edges of the paper all 
around it, and Rick was just finishing tying on 
the tail, when I happened to look at a big black 
printed headline, almost under my hand on the 
kite’s back, and I read this : 



“RICK!” I CRIED, “JUST LOOK AT THIS, QUICK! MORSE 
HAS ESCAPED!” [Page 5-] 



A Prisoner Escaped 5 

ESCAPED FROM PRISON! 

Leader of Band of Thieves, Captured Last 
Year By City Police, Gets Away From 
Penitentiary. 

WAS CAPTAIN Benson's prize. 


Refugee is Man Whose Arrest Gave Pop- 
ular Police Officer His Promotion to 
Present Rank. 

I don’t know how I happened to read it at all 
at first, but, of course, as soon as I saw Captain 
Benson’s name, I knew who the man must be 
who had escaped from prison. It couldn’t be any- 
body but Morse himself, and in a minute I was 
excited as could be over it. 

‘‘Rick!” I cried, “just look at this, quick! 
Morse has escaped!” 

“Morse who?” asked Rick, looking up. He 
knew who Morse was, of course, for he was at 
the store with me when the thieves were captured, 
but he didn’t remember just at once. 


6 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘'Morse, the blind man!” I cried. “Or rather 
the man who wasn't blind. Look here!” And 
then I read the heading over out loud. 

Well, Rick forgot the kite for a minute, just 
the same as I did, and we both leaned down there 
on our hands and knees and read all there was to 
read of the item. This is what it said: 

The well-known criminal, Lemuel Morse, head 
of the gang of thieves which looted the silver de- 
partment at Fleming's department store last year, 
and who was arrested with his accomplices by 
Police Captain Richard Benson, made his escape 
from the State penitentiary last night. 

It is believed that confederates aided him out- 
side the prison, as he bolted from the office where 
he had lately been employed upon some clerical 
work, and has disappeared completely. Officials 
of the prison admit that there is absolutely no clue 
as to his whereabouts, though the theory is that 
he has returned to this city. Search is being made 
in every direction. 


A Prisoner Escaped 7 

It will be remembered that Andrew Benedict, 
one of the gang- which worked under Morsels 
leadership, turned State’s evidence at the trial, 
and helped to secure the conviction of his pals. 
It is believed that Morse’s grudge against this 
man forms actually his strongest motive in at- 
tempting this escape, for it is known that he has 
threatened in the hearing of others to “make 
Benedict suffer” for his treachery. 

There was more to the item, but we had cut it 
off, just diagonally across the next lines, and we 
couldn’t find the rest of it, though we hunted and 
hunted for it among the scraps left from the kite. 
But there was enough there to make Rick and me 
about wild with excitement. 

“Just to think. Witter, that he it is who should 
get away !” Rick said. 

“That’s the kind that always does,” I said, for 
Captain Benson had told me once that it was al- 
ways the worst criminal who made the escape 
from prison, because he is generally the one who 


8 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

has the longest sentence from which he wants to 
get away ; and who has the most brains, too. And 
father said that was probably true, and that it was 
too bad a man couldn’t use his brains for some- 
thing better than thieving, when they were really 
good brains. He said that, usually, if a man 
would put as much work and study on honest 
things as he was obliged to put on stealing or 
forgery or anything else dishonest, he would make 
far more money, besides being decent and living 
right. 

“Where do you s’pose it is that he has gone?” 
Rick said. 

“The paper says the city,” I answered. “I 
should think probably that might be the place he 
would go, wouldn’t you?” 

“Yes. But, Witter, aren’t you glad you aren’t 
there now ?” asked Rick. 

“Why?” I said, surprised. 

“The paper it says Morse wishes to make Bene- 
dict suffer for sending him to prison. Perhaps he 
will remember that you helped to send him to 
prison, also.” 


A Prisoner Escaped 9 

I think what Rick said just made my heart 
jump. Such a thing had never come into my head, 
and I guess it never could have come there if he 
hadn’t said it. And we both just sat there on the 
floor and looked at each other, while he seemed 
just as much startled as I was at the idea. 

But pretty soon it seemed as if it wasn’t very 
sensible for me to be scared about such a thmg as 
that, for you wouldn’t believe a man who had es- 
caped from prison could get away very far with- 
out being caught again, when all the officers in 
the country would be looking for him. And, be- 
sides, he wouldn’t hardly remember a boy like me, 
when he was really after a man like Benedict. 

don’t think he would be after me?” I said, 
when I’d thought about it. 

“Maybe he would not,” .answered Rick. “But 
I’m glad you’re up here at St. Croix and that your 
father and your mother are in Europe.” 

I thought, all at once, that we didn’t know just 
when the escape had happened, for we hadn’t 
looked for the date on that paper, and it was an 


lo The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
old one, too, for we had got it out of a pile of 
rubbish in one of the store-rooms. And so I be- 
gan looking on the kite, to see if I couldn’t find 
out just when that paper had been printed, and by 
turning it over it didn’t take long to find the head 
of the columns. And there I saw the date, which 
was nearly two weeks before the day we were 
using it for the kite. So I pointed it out to Rick. 

“The escape was two weeks ago,” I said. 
“Probably he’s back in prison again now.” 

“Maybe,” answered Rick. “How is it that we 
shall know?” 

“We can look at the file of papers down in the 
library,” I said, thinking that would be the quick- 
est way, and so in about a minute we were up 
and just on the run for the library. 

The academy at St. Croix is a dandy place to 
go to school, and I think I never knew how much 
fun and how many interesting things there are in 
the world till I went there. But I can’t tell much 
about it in this story, and about all our football 
games and our track team and everything like that 


A Prisoner Escaped ii 

which Td like to tell, for they haven’t anything 
to do with the story itself. Maybe Fll write about 
them sometime. But the library is in the same 
building in which Rick and I live, and which we 
call the North Dorm, or Dormitory, as it ought to 
be, and it is a great place, where they have all 
kinds of books and papers. 

So we found the file of one of the city papers 
and began looking them over carefully. We 
found one that was just the same date as that on 
the kite, and we read the whole of the article about 
the escape. It didn’t tell much more, though, ex- 
cept just what people thought Morse might be 
doing or where he might be hiding. So we 
looked on into the next papers, and we found a 
lot about him quite easily. The first was that a 
farmer way down in the southern part of the 
State thought he had seen the refugee, as that 
item called him. Then we read about the officers 
being after him and losing all trace of him again. 
Then the police at home in the city arrested a 
man who looked like him, but who turned out not 


12 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
to be the convict, as he was spoken of in that 
article. Then some tramp made a woman in a little 
town over east give him some food, going into her 
house in broad daylight, and ordering her to get 
him a meal. And the police thought perhaps that 
tramp was the fugitive, as they called him in that 
report. But, after the sheriff of that county had 
caught the tramp, he turned out not to be Morse, 
the runaway, as he was named then. 

It seemed funny how many different names 
they could find to call an escaped prisoner, but it 
didn’t seem very funny to read about what a bad 
man he had been, and how afraid everybody was 
of him, and then to remember what Rick had said 
about his having a grudge against me, for I really 
did help capture him and send him to prison, you 
know. And the worst of it was that when we had 
been all through the papers from the day after 
the escape up to that Friday morning, we found 
that Morse had not been captured at all, and that 
people were beginning to believe that he had got 
clean away and wouldn’t be found. 


A Prisoner Escaped 13 

Well, I don’t like to have people think I am a 
coward, or just foolish, either, but I have to write 
it that I was really feeling pretty bad with the idea 
that maybe something might happen to me, if I 
should ever see that leader of the silver thieves 
again, in spite of all the things I could think of 
that would make it unlikely I ever could see him. 
But maybe if you read all of this story, you will 
find how easy it is for unlikely things to happen. 

It was just because I didn’t want Rick to think 
I was a coward, though, that I did some of the 
things that helped get me into trouble. 

‘‘Maybe you’d better not go around away from 
the school very much,” was what he said when we 
went back up to my room, after we’d read the 
papers. 

That really seemed pretty silly, and I meant to 
try not to be silly, so I just laughed. 

“I’ll go anywhere,” I said, which was a lot 
more than I would do, I knew, but I was sort of 
mad at him and at myself, too, for making such a 
lot out of a thing that I knew would make most 


14 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
people laugh at us. And then I went on to say 
that I wasn’t afraid to go out in the country, just 
as we often did Saturday, and just as we were 
already planning to do with the kite that next 
day. And I made Rick promise, too, that he 
wouldn’t tell about the thing we’d found out, for 
it was almost sure to get around among the boys 
that I was scared. 

Well, we finished the kite while we talked about 
the strangeness of how we’d found out about 
Morse’s escape, and then we went down to din- 
ner in the big dining-hall. And it was then that 
I found the first letter from my father, which had 
just come from Liverpool, in England, and had 
been mailed the very day he and mother had 
landed over there. There was another letter for 
me that had just come in the evening mail, but I 
read father’s letter first, because he told me a lot 
of things that interested me about the ship they 
had crossed the Atlantic on and about the people 
they had seen. 

But one thing surprised me very much, for, at 
the end of the letter, I read this last sentence : 


A Prisoner Escaped 15 

“You will be interested to hear that the thief, 
Morse, who was leader of the gang you stumbled 
into last year, has escaped from prison. Stranger 
still, they tell us over here, that he is believed to 
have crossed the ocean under disguise on the same 
steamer with us. If he did, he has eluded the 
officers here, for they haven’t found him.” 

I was all full of surprise about that, and was 
hardly thinking of anything else while I opened 
my second letter, when the name of the person 
who had written it to me caught my eyes first, 
where it was signed at the bottom of a very short 
note. It was from Flora Midgely, the little girl 
who was lame when I first knew her, but who had 
an operation and had been sent by Mr. Fleming up 
to a sanitarium not very far from St. Croix to get 
well. I had known she was there, and had been 
to see her once, but I hadn’t expected to hear from 
her. But, in a minute, when I had read the letter, 
I was almost ready to jump out of my chair at 
the table with the astonishment and the scare it 
gave me, for this is what it said: 


1 6 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
“Witter : Morse has escaped. He’s been 
here, I’m sure, for I’ve had a note from him to 
write and tell him where father is. I was to leave 
the note in a certain place in the woods close by 
here for him to find it. I didn’t. And oh ! what 
shall I do? Father and my brother Fred are down 
South, and I’m afraid to tell anybody here, for I 
don’t know what Morse would do if I did. I 
won’t dare go out, either, for fear he will be look- 
ing for me. You will do something I know — 
quick. Your friend, 

“Flora Midgely.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE SHADOW AT THE WINDOW 

You can imagine, I guess, how that letter af- 
fected me. Of course, I was pretty sure, right 
away, that Flora must be right about her note be- 
ing from Morse, for it seemed to me that he 
might appear anywhere at any minute. It wasn’t 
very queer, either, I thought, after all the things 
we had learned that day, and I felt more afraid 
than ever that he was really going to try to make 
trouble for all of us who were concerned in his 
first arrest. 

So the thing that I thought of, as the thing I 
ought to do, was to send word to Captain Benson, 
right away, and as I was so much stirred up now 
that I couldn’t think of eating anything, I just 


17 


1 8 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
got up from the table and went out immediately. 
Rick saw me go, and thought I was sick, as I 
guess the other boys at the table thought. And 
he came after me and caught me in the hall, as 
anxious as could be. He's a nice little chap and a 
good friend. 

'AVhat is it that makes you so pale. Witter?" 
he asked. 

I just handed him father’s letter and Flora’s. 
He knew her and he knew where she was. I think 
the sanitarium wasn’t more than twenty miles 
from St. Croix, on a lake — not Little Fern 
Lake, where we were to camp, but a lake called 
Frayne Lake. 

'^What do you think of that ?’’ I asked him, and 
I know I was just about trembling then, because 
so many things had happened so quickly that day 
that I hardly knew what to expect. 

Rick exclaimed over the letter, of course, but 
he was pretty quick to think, too. ‘‘So !’’ he said. 
“He’s after the little girl first, to ask questions." 


“Yes." 


The Shadow at the Window 19 

“How did he know that she was there?’’ 

“I don’t know. That was easy to find out, 
though.” 

“What will you do?” he asked. 

“I don’t know what to do,” I answered. “I 
want to send word to Captain Benson.” 

“That is it — do send the word to him!” ex- 
claimed Rick. “He will know what it is to do.” 

“Of course. But how shall I send it ?” 

“Telegraph.” 

“I don’t dare. Everybody can read a tele- 
gram.” 

“It is that is true. Send a letter.” 

“I guess I’ll have to, but it’s so slow.” 

“Maybe Flora was mistaken. She doesn’t say 
how the letter from Morse was signed.” 

“No, but trust her to know. He probably let 
her understand easily who he is.” 

“Do you suppose it is that anybody would play 
a trick on her?” asked Rick. 

“How?^’ 

“Just to scare her.” 


20 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘‘No, I don’t think so. And we know the man 
really is free, and roaming around.” 

“But your father says he was told the man is 
in England.” 

“That’s just another rumor. No, I believe 
Flora is right.” 

We went upstairs again, and to my room. I 
was so nervous about everything now that I just 
hated to see that kite there in the room, too, with 
the black letters on it telling about the escape, but 
I had to just stop being excited, I knew, and do 
something. 

“Let’s see if we can’t write a telegram no one 
but Captain Benson will understand,” I said, be- 
cause I was sure I shouldn’t delay any longer than 
I had to. And I got paper and pencil at once. 

“Will you tell people here at the academy. 
Witter?” Rick asked me. 

“No,” I answered. “I don’t think we’d better 
till we hear something more.” 

“They might tell you what to do.” 

“They might talk, though, and maybe Captain 


The Shadow at the Window 21 
Benson would have a chance to catch Morse if 
the runaway didn’t know he was suspected of be- 
ing in the State. Besides, it would be taking a 
chance of letting Morse know that Flora had told 
of his being near where she is. I don’t know 
what he might do to her and to me, too, if we got 
the officers close after him and then they failed to 
catch him.” 

I began to try to write a message to Captain 
Benson. It was hard, for I did not know what to 
say, but in a minute Rick began to help me, and 
when I was really at work, it began to be easier, 
so we wrote it like this : 

‘‘Refugee heard from, near place where Flora 
is. Threatens her. Ask Fleming for her address. 
Haven’t told anyone. Witter.” 

That seemed to be clear. Captain Benson 
would know who Flora was, of course, for he 
knew all about her, and he would know how to get 
her address right away, from Mr. Fleming. And 


22 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
I thought no one else could read that telegram 
very intelligently. Rick thought it was good, too. 
So we went downstairs again, and, as supper 
wasn’t over, we just skipped without asking per- 
mission, and ran over town and sent the message 
from the office there. 

Then I took Flora’s letter and enclosed it in 
an envelope, and slipped in a note telling when it 
had come, and mailed it to Captain Benson, too, 
so he’d understand all I did. And I wrote a note 
to Flora, too, to let her know what I’d done. 

When it was done it seemed to me that I could 
hardly believe anything like what we had been 
hearing about all that afternoon and evening 
really could be happening, when everything else 
was so quiet and nice all around us, and when we 
got back to the school, and managed to get in 
without being caught by Mr. Tally, who has 
charge of the North Dorm, and found all the boys 
studying quietly in their rooms, it seemed as if 
maybe there wasn’t so much to be afraid of, even 
if such a man as Morse was at liberty somewhere. 


The Shadow at the Window 23 
and even if he was trying to find the people he 
wanted to make trouble for. Surely the police 
would find him soon, and meanwhile, everybody 
was safe from him, if he couldn’t learn where they 
were. 

But I couldn’t go to sleep very well that night, 
after Rick had gone to his room and I had gone 
to bed, because I really hadn’t any studying to do 
and because I knew that morning would come 
quicker if I went to sleep earlier. I saw pictures 
when I shut my eyes, the way you always do at 
night when you can’t sleep. And I kept seeing 
Morse just as he used to be when he pretended to 
be a blind beggar near Fleming’s store. I could 
see his face with its blue goggles and the long 
beard, and his queer way of laughing, just open- 
ing his mouth and chuckling without making 
hardly any noise. 

Of course, the man must be hiding somewhere 
out in the woods that surrounded Frayne Lake. 
He wouldn’t dare to show himself to anyone 
around the country. I could imagine how he was 


24 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
camping out deep among the trees, somewhere in 
the valley there, for there is a really pretty big 
woods all around Frayne. He couldn’t have a 
fire, and it must be hard for him to get food, and 
he wouldn’t have even an axe or a gun or any- 
thing, perhaps, to help make a camp or get game 
with. Maybe he would have to lie out in the 
bushes every night, even when it rained, as it had 
sometimes during the last week, and to live just 
like an animal. 

I shivered over my own thoughts, for it is ter- 
rible to think of a man, who hates everybody and 
who is really hated by everybody, hiding and be- 
ing hunted for day after day that way. I won- 
dered how he could feel safe for a single minute. 
If I was afraid at all that he might come after me 
— that just one man like Morse might come on me 
unexpectedly and do me any harm — how must he 
feel, when he knew that practically everybody was 
after him to send him back to firison? ’ 

I don’t believe any man can ever be very happy 
who has been a thief or who has done anything 


The Shadow at the Window 25 
else bad like that. He must feel terribly miser- 
able, I think, to know that nobody is a friend of 
his and that he hasn’t any place he can go and be 
free from danger. It must be harder for him to 
sleep than for me, I thought. 

I guess it was about when I was thinking of 
how sleepy and tired Morse would get in a week 
or two, going through that kind of experiences, 
that I went to sleep myself, and I must have slept 
just like a log, as people say, not to have heard 
all that I found out afterwards happened. 

I had locked my door that night. We are not 
supposed to leave our doors locked at night in the 
Dorm, but we are allowed to have locks on them, 
so that we can fasten them when we go away or 
anything. But I might just as well tell that I was 
more scared that night than even Rick knew. I 
felt a lot better to know that the lock was on, for I 
knew how easy it would be, for anybody who 
w'anted to, to get into the Dorm downstairs and 
to come up and come into a room, without meet- 
ing anybody or making any noise that would be 


26 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
heard. And I knew that I slept pretty soundly, 
too, for the boys had played a trick or two on me 
when I was asleep, and I hadn’t even waked up 
once when they “stacked” everything in my room, 
except the bed itself. 

Well, I dreamed and dreamed, I know, for I 
can remember some of the queer things that were 
happening to me. Did you ever dream that you 
were out away in a strange country somewhere, 
where all the land was just full of stairways, and 
that somebody was chasing and chasing you? 
That’s a dream I’ve had lots of times, and I had 
it that night. It seemed as if, somehow, I could 
get down those stairs just fine, too, for I would 
take a run at the top and just sort of skate all 
down the steps, only touching the edge of each 
and making the whole of one long flight in each 
slide without ever falling. Then when I got down 
the stairs. I’d jump into the air, and the force of 
my jump would carry me a long ways. When I 
began to come down towards the earth. I’d just 
jump again, without touching the ground, and so 


The Shadow at the Window 27 

could keep myself up till I came to another stair- 
way, and made another slide. 

Ifs a dream that is lots of fun to have, and 
maybe somebody else who reads this will remem- 
ber that he has had it, too, for father says people 
often have dreams that are alike. But that night 
the dream ended very suddenly, as it never had 
ended before, in a bump at the bottom of one 
stairway, and I found myself wide awake, looking 
out into the darkness and listening with all my 
might. 

My room isn’t a big one. None of the boys’ 
rooms are. The bed stands over to the right as 
you go in, with its head farthest from you, and 
toward the window, which is just opposite the 
door. A table usually stands just in the middle of 
the room and some chairs are always around. I’ve 
got a bookcase over on the opposite side from the 
bed, and my tennis racket and baseball bats and 
all those things are piled in the corner between 
the bookcase and the window. 

When I opened my eyes I could just make out 


28 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
the table in the middle of the room. At first that 
was the only thing I could see at all, for it was a 
pretty dark night, without any moon. Then I 
could make out the door, which was lighter col- 
ored than the wall paper. And then I turned to 
look up toward the window. I seemed, even then, 
to be all in a fuss about something. My heart was 
beating hard, as if I’d really been running and 
jumping on all those stairs, with somebody after 
me, instead of just dreaming about it. 

I hadn’t any idea what had waked me up, but 
when I looked at that big gray square that I knew 
was the window, I was sure that something very 
strange was going on, for, right in the middle of 
it, a figure that was sort of shadowy black against 
the sky, was just as plain as could be, close to it 
and looking in. 

I guess every person who has been frightened 
knows how the shivers just came out of your neck 
and run all over the skin of your back when it 
happens. It’s specially so, I think, if you’re like 
I was then, and can’t do a thing. There was only 


The Shadow at the Window 29 
one thing in the world I could think of, and that 
was that the person who was out there was Morse, 
come after me, sure as could be. He’d probably 
found out where I was, just as he’d found out 
about Flora’s place, and now he was trying to 
get in. 

The window was open about six inches, as we 
always have to leave our windows at night. The 
room was on the second floor, right over the 
porch, so I didn’t have to guess how a man could 
get up to it. I tried to make myself believe that 
one of the boys was there trying to play some trick 
on me again, for some of the other room windows 
opened on the porch, too. But the figure was too 
big for any boy, I was sure, and, besides, it didn’t 
act like a boy. 

There was a screen on the window, for it was 
getting warm weather, and we always had them 
on early. The man outside was fumbling and 
fumbling, trying to get it open, and he was acting 
so queer and so hurried that I was just wild with 
terror of him. I lay still, at first just because I 


30 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
couldn’t realize what was happening, I guess, or 
was too scared to stir; but when I found that he 
couldn’t get the screen open very easily, it just 
seemed as if the muscles in my body suddenly got 
loose so I could move, and all at once I just scram- 
bled out of bed and to the floor and commenced 
to creep towards the door. If I could get there 
and get out, I thought, then I would holler and 
wake everybody in the dorm up, and the man 
wouldn’t dare come in. 

Before I got to the door the idea came to me 
of how terrible it would be if Morse should get 
into the window quick after I got out into the hall 
and should follow me swiftly and get out into 
the building, too. He could run through the halls 
in the darkness, among the boys and the teachers 
who would come, and he could do something 
awful, maybe to me or maybe to somebody else, 
and get away easily. And I was more afraid of 
that, it seemed to me, than I was to turn around 
and look at him again, there at the window. And 
when I did turn, the thought of throwing some- 


The Shadow at the Window 31 
thing at him came to me, and I reached right out 
to a rack by the door where I knew my Indian 
clubs and dumb-bells were, and I grabbed the first 
thing I felt, and just turned and threw it as hard 
as I could right at the window and the man be- 
hind it. 

The club, for that was what I threw, 
smashed the glass with a terrible crash, and all 
the pieces went jingling to the sill and down to 
the floor with a horrible noise. Breaking glass al- 
ways sounds as if something dreadful is happen- 
ing, anyway, because you always hear it at fires, 
and you never hear it at all unless there is some 
kind of an accident occurring. And it echoed all 
over the building, and outside, and everywhere. 
And then I just unlocked and pulled open my 
door and hollered and hollered for help. 


CHAPTER III 


ON THE TRAIL OF A HAWK 

Now^ I don’t like to be laughed at any better 
than anybody else, and I don’t really think there 
is anything to laugh at in the thing that happened 
that night. Still, all the boys all over school were 
laughing at me the next day, for who do you sup- 
pose it was at the window when I threw the dumb- 
bell? It was Mr. Tally. 

It was all out in a minute, of course, after the 
crash of the glass and all the rest of the racket I 
made. Mr.. Tally had come to my room after I 
was asleep and found my door locked. He 
knocked and knocked and called until he got 
frightened because I didn’t answer, and then, at 
last, he had gone in through one of the other 


32 


On the Trail of a Hawk 33 
rooms that opened on the porch and had come 
around to my window to try to get in and see if I 
was sick or anything. 

It was lucky that the screen was in the window, 
or the glass might have cut him pretty badly. As 
it was, all the glass went against the wires, which 
the club wasn’t heavy enough to break, and 
he wasn’t hurt at all. But he was scared, too, I 
can tell you, and some of us fellows couldn’t help 
laughing about that, for he is a sort of funny fel- 
low. He studies very hard and wears glasses, and 
tries to make us all do just what we ought to, and 
will really do almost anything for you, if you need 
it. But he does lots of queer things, too, and the 
way he hollered and scrambled away from that 
window when the glass broke right in his face 
was funny. 

But he had as good a right to be scared as I 
had, I guess, so I felt sort of sorry to have the 
boys laugh at him. And he showed he was a good 
kind of a fellow, because he didn’t get mad, but 
just laughed, too, at himself and at me. Of 


34 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
course, all the noise and excitement got every boy 
in the house up and out, and when they found 
nothing was really the matter, they began to jolly 
me like everything. 

I know that a fellow never ought to get mad 
when he is jollied about a joke that is on him, 
and, of course, that joke, what there was of it, 
was surely on me. I knew it was because I had 
been so nervous when I went to bed that I had 
been so very much frightened by the figure at the 
window, and hadn’t waited to find out who it was 
before I smashed the glass and made such a fuss. 
But when I found out why Mr. Lally was trying 
to get into my room, I found at the same time 
that I couldn’t tell anybody the reason why I had 
been such a coward. For a telegram had come 
for me after we were all asleep, and Mr. Lally had 
brought it up to my room. 

“Witter Whitehead, 

“St. Croix Academy. 

“All right. Will protect Flora. Don’t talk. 

“Benson.” 


On the Trail of a Hawk 35 

I don’t know whether I would have been able 
to keep still that next day and the days after, at 
the academy, if the telegram hadn’t said “Don’t 
talk.” It seemed to me that I had to tell the 
boys about what I knew, for they made so much 
fun about my being so scared that I thought I 
couldn’t stand it. I laughed at first, and I really 
didn’t blame them very much for making fun, for 
I knew I would have laughed at another boy for 
the same thing, if I didn’t know he had a better 
reason for being frightened out of his wits than 
just seeing a person at his window. 

But when they kept it up and kept it up, calling 
me “the watch dog,” and pretending to pat me 
on the back because I had “barked” so loud and 
waked up the whole house when “burglars” were 
around, it was hard not to get mad. Then, pretty 
soon, one of the boys called me “Fido,” and every- 
body just howled over that and took it right up, 
and I heard it everywhere I went. No — not 
everybody, for there were some of the fellows who 
thought it was mean, and, of course, Rick didn’t 
call me so, because he understood. 


36 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

Well, I had to stand it, but you can believe that 
ril always remember that it isn’t so funny to 
tease a fellow over a thing like that, because he 
may really not deserve it at all. I nearly had a 
fight once or twice with some of the boys who 
were the worst about it. But, in the end, it all 
made me make up my mind that the only way I 
could ever get rid of that name would be to prove 
that I wasn’t a coward. And that made me really 
almost anxious that something would happen to 
give me a chance. 

This is the way it was all that next week. I 
would come down to breakfast in the morning, 
and the minute I stepped into the dining-room, 
somebody would lean over and pat his knee and 
make a noise with his lips, like you make when 
you call a dog. Then somebody else would 
whistle. Of course, they had to do it in a way 
so that Mr. Lally wouldn’t notice from where he 
sat at the head table, but they made me hear and 
see. Once they piled a lot of bones on a plate 
and sent it up to my room, leaving it at the door, 


On the Trail of a Hawk 37 
marked Reward for Fido.” Out on the campus 
they would bark in little squeaky voices when I 
passed — “Bow-wow-wow ! Wow- wow like 
that. And they would stand and call to me in the 
halls when none of the instructors were around: 
“Come Fido! Good doggie!” and hold up their 
arms in a hoop and say, “Here! Jump through 
this !” 

I suppose you will laugh. It makes me laugh 
now, to remember all the things they thought of 
to say. They are a mighty fine lot of fellows at 
St. Croix, I want to tell you, though, and I don^t 
hold any grudges now for any of the “kidding,” 
as they called it, that they gave me. But then it 
was about the toughest time I ever went through. 

But I kept still, though I got madder and 
madder. I was pretty sure that, if they knew all 
the story about Morse, they wouldn’t have done 
it, but I knew, too, that if I told anybody at all, it 
would go all over school and all over town, too, 
and, of course, then the little St. Croix newspaper 
would be sure to print a lot of stuff about it, and 


38 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

then it would be almost impossible that it 
shouldn’t be known to Morse or some of his 
friends. They would surely be watching the pa- 
pers around our part of the State, if he was hiding 
anywhere near Frayne Lake. 

The time for the closing of school came, 
though, right in the middle of my troubles, and 
as soon as commencement day was over most of 
the fellows were off with a rush for the summer 
vacation, and only eight of us, who were going on 
the camping excursion with Mr. Tally, were left. 
I hadn’t heard a word more from Flora or from 
Mr. Benson, so I supposed nothing new had hap- 
pened, and Rick said he was sure Flora had had 
a false alarm. He said that maybe some of the 
friends of Morse were just trying to make reports 
spring up in all the different places they could, so 
as to keep the officers busy on wrong tracks till 
he could get away. He thought somebody be- 
sides Morse might have written the note to Flora 
just for such a reason as that, thinking she would 
tell, as she had. 


On the Trail of a Hawk 39 

That seemed pretty likely to me, too, when we 
talked it over, and I began to believe that maybe 
Morse had really got away to England, as the 
people had told father, or had gone somewhere 
away outside our State, and wasn’t in any of the 
places where he had been reported to be. 

I wrote to Captain Benson and to Flora, too, 
before I left on the camping trip, telling them 
where I would be, and asking them to let me know 
as soon as anything happened. But it wasn’t till 
after we were over at Little Fern Lake, in our 
camp, that anything more did occur, and then it 
was entirely different from anything I had ever 
imagined. 

The boys stopped jollying me quite so much 
when he really got to camp, though they still 
called me Fido quite often. There were so many 
other interesting things to do that they began to 
forget. But I didn’t forget it. You know how 
you remember anything like that, which has made 
you very much ashamed, and you always feel as 
if you have to do something to make people think 


40 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

more of you, after they have made fun of you. 
It just stayed in my mind. Fd wake up in the 
night, in camp, and think about it. I thought 
about it when I was out in the woods, and when I 
was fishing or swimming or rownig, or anything 
we did. I got so I began to feel that the very 
reason why the boys had stopped talking was that 
they had come to think it wasn’t so much a joke 
as it was a fact that I was easily scared. And 
then, when, one day, I happened to overhear Mr. 
Lally telling Jim Ainsworth, who had been one 
of the worst jollyers, that it wasn’t my fault if my 
nerves were high-strung, and that a fellow can’t 
always show just how brave he is when he is 
waked out of sound sleep and unexpectedly faces 
a test, it seemed to me that I would give about 
anything for a chance to prove to them all that I 
wasn’t a coward. 

It was almost the next day, I think, that Rick 
and I went off in the woods to talk and explore. 
We took a boat and rowed up to the head of the 
lake, first to the place where Little Fern River 


On the Trail of a Hawk 41 
empties into it. We wanted to see what the valley 
was like, for the river comes down between hills 
for a long ways — nine or ten miles, I think, and 
the sides were so steep that there weren’t any 
farms along there at all, but just heavy woods 
with a road cut into the bluff, high up on each side, 
for teams which went back and forth between the 
lake and the town of Frayne. The woods were 
thick, too, and there was lots of brush and that 
sort of thing, except right on the bank of the 
river,” where people sometimes landed from boats. 
It was as wild as it could be in such a settled part 
of the country, and that was why it was fun for 
us to explore it. 

I think we had been thinking a little less about 
Morse lately than when we were at school, and 
had begun to feel that he had probably gone out 
of our part of the country if he was ever there 
at all, for Fm sure we hadn’t much real idea that 
he could be near Frayne or the Little Fern. We 
talked about it and about what we would or could 
do if we should find him, and we went sort of 


42 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
looking around and half pretending we thought 
we might see him or a place where he had been. 
But I know I hadn’t any notion at all that we’d 
see anything any more dangerous than a squirrel 
or a woodpecker. 

We had a good time that day. We had car- 
ried our lunch, and as we could both swim, and 
as there wasn’t any other danger to think of but 
the water, Mr. Lally was always willing to let us 
take all-day trips if we wanted to. We’d promise 
to get back before dark, that was all. So we ex- 
plored all along the shore of the river, a long 
ways, and had a swim and ate our lunch and ex- 
plored some more. We didn’t go up high on the 
hillside at first. 

But pretty soon after lunch we found a path 
that led up through the woods, and that we 
thought it would be fun to follow, and we climbed 
way up among the trees. It was very steep and 
rough. In some places the path was just steps 
cut in the earth, and in other places you could 
hardly find it at all, for it almost disappeared. But 


On the Trail of a Hawk 43 

we got interested in just keeping on it and search- 
ing it out, through all the windings. 

I guess it was about half way up to the top of 
the ravine that we came to a sort of gully. The 
path ran along one side pretty plainly, but down 
in the bottom there was a little brook that was 
running from up above somewhere, and, because 
I was thirsty and Rick was getting tired, I wanted 
to climb down in there, right away, and get a 
drink and take a rest. So we left the path and 
climbed down over the mossy stones, for there 
were rocks there, and we got down after a while 
to the bottom. 

We got a drink and sat there resting for quite 
a long time, when all at once a queer thing hap- 
pened. A hawk — an awfully big one, too — came 
suddenly right over the edge of the gully, up above 
us, and lighted on an old stub of a tree up there. 
He had something in his claws, too. We couldn’t 
see what it was, but just the second we saw it we 
were interested, of course. 

The bird didn’t seem to see us, and I never saw 


44 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
a hawk so near as he was. He was such a fierce- 
looking one, and he sat so still on his perch, look- 
ing and looking, that it seemed as if he must see 
us pretty quickly. I don't know whether he would 
or not, if Rick hadn’t moved, but Rick did move a 
little after a minute, just stretching out his hand 
or his foot or something, and then the hawk flew 
away in a second. But the funny part of it was 
that he didn’t fly up, but just sort of dived away 
down through the gully, and seemed to disap- 
pear at a place where the rocks jutted out from 
the side. And that made us think he must have 
lighted again, and that maybe he had a nest up 
in there somewhere. 

Well, of course, we wanted to find that nest 
right away, but we knew it wouldn’t be any use 
to try to follow the hawk up through the gully. 
So, after we talked it over, we decided that may- 
be, if we climbed out of the gully carefully, on 
the other side from where we came in, and got 
to the top of a little sort of mound-like rock on 
the hill which was just beyond us, we might be 


On the Trail of a Hawk 45 
able to see well enough so as to know just where 
Mr. Hawk would fly up from when he should 
see us coming. 

It wasn’t very easy climbing, and we never 
would have tried to get out of the gully that way, 
I know, if we hadn’t wanted to see that hawk 
again. The rock on that side was all moss cov- 
ered, too, and pretty slippery. But we managed 
it, after while, trying not to make a noise or to 
get where the hawk might see us move. And, at 
last, we got to the top and found a place where 
we could creep up on the moss lying down, and 
peek over. 

But what we saw, when we did it, wasn’t a 
hawk or a hawk’s nest, or anything else like that. 
It was a man — a tall man, in rough clothes, who 
seemed to be kneeling down on his hands and 
knees on just the other side of our rock, not fifty 
feet from where we were, and looking down be- 
low him at something we couldn’t see. 


CHAPTER IV 


A TELL-TALE STRAW HAT 

It was so quiet all around us in the woods, with 
only the wind moving the leaves above us a little, 
and a bird twittering once in a while, that we 
could hear the brook back down below us. Noth- 
ing at all was stirring, and the figure of the man, 
kneeling there in the bushes and looking down 
among the rocks, was just as still as everything 
around him. You might almost have taken him 
for a log, I guess, if it hadn't been for his white 
shirt sleeves. 

He surely didn’t know we were anywhere near 
him, for he didn’t show the slightest sign that 
he thought of anything at all except what he was 
looking at. And he just stared and stared and 

46 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 47 

stared for so long that you could hardly believe 
he could keep from moving for such a time. But 
at last he did move, and pretty quickly, too, for 
he started back from his place suddenly and sat 
up, and looked all around slowly, as if he’d heard 
something. Rick and I dodged down flat behind 
some little bushes that grew in the shallow earth 
on top of the rock He couldn’t see us there, and 
we were somehow afraid to let him see us then. 
But by moving around a little we could see him 
through the leaves. 

He stood up and walked a little ways. He was 
on a kind of flat top of another lower rock than 
ours, and it seemed to me by the way he acted 
that he could see from where he was away down 
the gully and the path that ran beside it, for he 
looked up and down in the direction the path ran, 
as if he was expecting somebody or was afraid 
somebody would come. And we could see then 
that he had a gun with him — a very queer-look- 
ing, short-barreled shotgun, it seemed like. And 
he carried it in his right hand as if he was just 
ready to use it. 


48 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

I don’t know why I should think he was any- 
body to be afraid of. It never even occurred to 
me that he might be Morse, for he was tall and 
thin, and his hair was cut short and he hadn’t 
any beard. He didn’t turn has face exactly to- 
ward us, so that I could see it plainly, for quite 
a while, but kept looking off over the gully and up 
at the woods above. But I knew I didn’t want 
him to see us, because it just seemed that there 
was something peculiar about him, as if he was 
afraid someone might see him, or as if he was 
guarding something or somebody. Perhaps, I 
only think now that I thought so then, for, of 
course, I know now what he really was guarding. 

But, after he had walked about quite a few 
minutes and had stood still, too, quite a while on 
the side of his rock towards the gully, he went 
back to the place where he had been at first and 
kneeled down again and commenced looking once 
more down among the rocks. And then, in a 
minute, I heard him say something, as if to some- 
body down below, and he laid down his gun and 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 49 

picked up a gunnysack that was beside him and 
began to pull some things out of the bushes and 
stuff into it. And when I saw what the things 
were he was putting into the bag, I just held my 
breath, for what do you think? — it was money! 
It was packages of bills I I could tell, for Fve 
seen bills all done up that way lots of times, while 
I worked at Fleming’s store. The cash always 
used to come from the banks that way, wrapped 
up, you know, in packages of one hundred or two 
hundred or five hundred dollars. And that’s the 
way this money was, only he had quite a lot of 
packages, and they were as much as two inches 
thick, so that, even if they were only one-dollar 
bills, there were a great lot of them. 

But he put them all in the sack and tied a cord 
to it, and he let the whole thing down into the 
hole, and then he knelt there watching and watch- 
ing again. Suddenly, while I was watching close, 
though, he leaned down all at once and reached 
one hand into the space below him and began to 
lift and tug at something. 


50 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

I was so much interested that I sort of forgot 
that I was trying to hide, and got up on my hands 
and knees and looked over the top of the bushes 
at him, and as I did that I saw that he was helping 
to pull somebody else out of a hole which was in 
between the big stones. I saw a hand come up 
out of the hole, fast hold of his hand, and then 
another hand that grasped hold of the edge of the 
rock, and next minute I saw the face of another 
man come up into the sunlight. 

Rick saw it, too, and he gave me a punch. But 
I just nodded and watched again, for it was pretty 
exciting then. The second man was climbing out 
on the rock beside the first man. He was a short, 
fat fellow, whose face was red as could be, as 
if he had found his climb pretty hard work. But 
before I noticed him much, except to be pretty 
sure Td never seen him before, the first man was 
reaching down again and helping still another 
person to come up. And in a minute the third one 
of their party was out on the rocks, too, and they 
were standing together and talking in low tones. 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 51 

The third man was a short man, just as the 
second was, but he was a square sort of a man 
instead of a fat one. He looked as if he might be 
very strong. His hair was black and he wore a 
black, bristly mustache, and his face had a sort 
of hard, ugly look, with his mouth drawn down 
at the corners so that deep wrinkles came there, 
and there were wrinkles in his forehead, as if he 
was used to scowling most of the time. 

They stood talking quite a few minutes, as if 
they couldn’t decide or agree about something, 
and once the fat man commenced to speak so loud 
that I could hear what he said quite plainly till 
the others suddenly made him stop and speak 
lower. The words were ‘‘there’s no more we can 
do here to-day”; but they didn’t mean anything 
to me. But they hushed him up very quickly, and 
you better believe I was afraid then to have them 
know we were watching them. 

But they didn’t stand there very long. The fat 
man brushed some dirt off his clothes, and then, 
after looking around them a little, they started to 


52 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
climb down the rock into the gully, and a minute 
later we saw them on the way up the hill path 
together, as if they were going to the top. 

Now, if I hadn’t been jollied so much for being 
easily scared, and if Rick hadn’t been there to see, 
I don’t know what I might have done, for I began 
to remember the time I got into trouble when I 
tried to spy on the silver thieves at home in the 
city. And I surely thought these men, hiding 
money out here in the woods, must be robbers, 
too, or something like that. But I was pretty 
curious to know what that hole in the rocks was, 
and what the men could have done with the money 
down there, and I made up my mind to go and 
look. I told Rick, as soon as it seemed safe to 
talk, and he was mighty interested, too, but he 
said he thought I’d better not. I guess that was 
what made me really decide to go out on that rock 
and look, for he said he wouldn’t think I would 
dare to do it^ and I wasn’t feeling like letting any- 
body say that to me. He didn’t mean to dare me, 
I know, but I took it that way. 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 53 

Well, we waited a long time, and we watched 
the woods and listened, and then, at last, when no 
one seemed to be anywhere near us any more, I 
did creep out of our hiding-place and I slid down 
to the rock the men had been on and went over 
to the hole. I did it pretty quickly, for I wanted 
to have a look and then get back under cover 
again as soon as I could, for I didn’t know what 
to expect. 

It was easy enough getting there from where 
we were. The lower rock was bare of moss and 
not slippery, and it was almost as flat as a porch. 
I ran across it to the edge, and looked down be- 
tween the bushes which came up beside it. And 
what I saw there was so unexpected that I could 
hardly believe it. There was a hole between the 
rocks, but it was much larger and wider than I had 
supposed. It was as much as twenty feet across, 
I think, and not round, but jagged, with the bare 
rocks forming its sides. But it was deep, and 
down below the first few feet the shadows of the 
trees and the rocks made it rather dim and dark. 


54 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
so that you couldn’t see everything very plainly. 
At the bottom, though, or rather far down inside, 
I could see a shine, which I knew in a minute was 
the light on water there, just as it looks in an 
old-fashioned well. And it was so far down and 
looked so dark and still that it was a scary thing 
just to look at. 

But I couldn’t see anything anywhere that 
showed how the men had got down in there. I 
could see how a man might climb down and up on 
the rocks, if he had a rope or something to hold 
on by, because the rocks were not smooth, and 
would furnish plenty of steps. But I couldn’t find 
any sign that they had had a rope, and it made me 
shiver to think of trying to get down those steep 
rocks with only the broken edges and cracks to 
hang on to. I couldn’t see any place where they 
could have put that bag of money, either. 

I motioned to Rick to come down, for I wanted 
him to see the place, too, and he came in a minute. 
And while he was getting down from our rock to 
the flat one, I picked up a loose stone and threw 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 55 

it down into the hole, just as a sort of test to 
see how deep it was. I guess the hole probably 
wasn't so deep as I thought, but the splash of the 
stone in the water sounded very hollow and lone- 
some, I tell you. 

^'What do you think of it ?" I asked Rick, as he 
looked carefully in over the edge. 

‘'Whew !" he answered, drawing back, ‘Td hate 
to fall in there." 

“So would I," I said. “And Fd like to know 
what those men were doing down there. This is 
a queer kind of a place for men to come and climb 
in and out, and hide money. This must be eight 
miles from Frayne, and we're at least six from 
our camp on Little Fern. I don't think there's a 
town very near here." 

“How do they get down ?" asked Rick. 

“I can't imagine." 

“Maybe they had a rope." 

“I didn't see it, did you?" 

“No. But perhaps they left it hanging inside." 

Rick is pretty quick to think of such things as 


56 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

that, and as quick as he said it, he commenced 
looking around for a stick. When he found one, 
he lay down on the edge of the rock and reached 
over, and before I really knew what he was try- 
ing to do, he had poked under the overhanging top 
of the stones and had pulled out a hanging inch 
line with his stick. 

^'Gee!” he said when he saw it. ‘‘They weren’t 
here just for one time. They use this line a good 
deal.” 

I looked at it, too, and I found that there were 
knots in it, as if to help make the climbing easy, 
and it showed a good deal dirtied by the hands 
that had used it. And then we found it was fas- 
tened to a heavy stake driven into a crack just 
under the edge of rock. 

I guess Rick and I both got nervous about being 
out on that rock pretty quickly after we saw that 
line. There wasn’t any doubt at all that what he 
said was true, and that it couldn’t be known when 
the men might be coming back, even if they had 
just left. 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 57 

'Tm going away from here” Rick said, and he 
got up from his place. ^Tm afraid.” 

He stood up and let the rope slide off the stick. 
But just as he turned towards me, a thing hap- 
pened that made us both suddenly pretty scared. 
The wind, which was blowing pretty strong over 
the top of the rocks, suddenly caught his straw hat 
off his head, and, in a second, it was over the edge 
of the hole in the rocks, and was sailing down 
zigzagging, turning over, stirking the sides and 
bounding, but surely on its way to the water be- 
low. We both looked over the edge, and we could 
see plainly enough to know when the hat struck 
the water and to see it floating around, brim up, 
as it happened. But Rick didn't wait a second. 

‘They'll know from the hat that we've been 
here !'' he exclaimed, looking at me, and suddenly 
biting his lip and holding it, the way little boys do 
sometimes when they get frightened. And I 
couldn't say that the men wouldn't think they had 
been watched by somebody, if they should find a 
hat down in the hole. Maybe they were robbers 


58 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
like the silver thieves, who came here to hide the 
things they stole. If they were, of course, they 
would be ready to do almost anything to prevent 
other people from finding out. 

“Fm afraid!’’ Rick said again. ^^Come on. 
Let’s go I What if they’d come back ?” 

‘Td like to get that hat out of there,” I said. 

I was mighty excited. I knew if we left the hat 
there it would be found sure, and the men might 
think their hiding-place was known. Of course, 
they might imagine that it had happened just as it 
did, but they would perhaps take their money 
away somewhere else in fear that whoever had 
lost the hat might come back. Of course, if they 
were thieves, I wanted to let somebody know 
about them — Mr. Benson, if I could — and I began 
to hope, right away, that maybe here was a new 
chance for me to do something to help capture 
some men that the police wanted. I knew that, if 
I could, the boys would all think it was great. I 
hadn’t even told them about the silver thieves 
then, because it seemed like crowing at first, and 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 59 
because I was too mad after their jollying, but I 
knew I’d be glad to tell them about this — or to 
have them know it, after what had happened in 
the dormitory. 

But I knew I wouldn’t dare try to climb down 
into that hole, so the only thing I could think of, 
for getting out the hat, was to fish for it. 

wish — I wish we had a fishline,’ I said, *'and 
a hook.” 

Rick looked at me, kind of worried; but all at 
once his face lightened up a little. 

^There’s a fishline under the forward seat in 
our boat,” he answered, ‘^and I’ve got a hook. 
Maybe — maybe we can get it.” 

Well, we didn’t waste a minute then. It was a 
long ways to where we had left the boat, but it 
was early still, and there was time enough for us 
to go there and to get back home to camp before 
dark, if we hustled. I was pretty sure, from what 
the fat man had said, that they were not coming 
back that day, and it seemed worth while to try. 

So we started. But, as we thought it would be 


6o The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
shorter for us to go some other way than the way 
we had come up through the winding path, we be- 
gan to look around, and it seemed as if the trees 
over to the left were rather thinner than they were 
just below us, and we might be able to get through 
that way down to the riverside, where we could 
make good speed. 

Well, we climbed down off that rock on the 
other side from the gully, and started to go down 
the hill and toward the river. The brush was 
pretty thick, but there wasn’t any danger of not 
knowing which way to go, for the side of the 
ravine was so steep that we knew we only had to 
go down hill to the river. But, as we were scram- 
bling along, trying to get on as fast as we could, 
all at once we came out into an unexpected open 
place in the woods, and found another stream of 
water running quietly along on a sort of level 
place in the side of the hill, to a little falls, farther 
on, where it jumped down towards the river. 

It was on what father says to call a shoulder 
of the hill, a place where the ground flattened out 


A Tell-Tale Straw Hat 6i 
in its steep pitch to the river, as if just to make a 
place for people — or for a brook — to rest, on the 
way down. But we had no sooner stepped out 
beside that little brook and looked back up its 
course, than Rick suddenly caught hold of my arm 
and pointed. 

‘Took \” he said. 

I looked, and there, coming meandering along, 
not twenty feet away from us, was a hat, floating 
brim-side up on the water, a straw hat — Rick’s 
hat, as I knew in a minute, for it came floating 
right straight to our very feet, and stopped 
against the weeds there. And Rick picked it up 
and found his mark in it. 


CHAPTER V 


IN THE HEART OF THE ROCKS 

Of course, anybody knows how surprised we 
were, but it made us think pretty quick. There 
was only one thing that could be the truth, and 
that was that the stream we were standing by was 
an outlet from that deep well-like pool back 
among the rocks. 

‘'Did you ever hear of such a thing?” Rick 
asked, as he let the water run out of the hat. 

“Yes,” I answered. “Pve heard of under- 
ground rivers, and I saw a place once where a 
brook came out of a cave, and nobody knew where 
it came from.” ■ 

“Do you s’pose there’s a cave up there where 
we were?” asked Rick. “Maybe a robbers’ cave?” 

62 


In the Heart of the Rocks 63 

‘'I don’t know,” I said. ‘‘I think those men 
must be robbers. What other reason could they 
have for hiding money ?” 

“Do robbers have to hide their money?” 

“Of course, but I didn’t suppose any robbers 
ever needed to hide in caves any more.” 

“It’s a good place, though. Who do you think 
those men are?” 

“How can I tell? You know as much about 
them as I do.” 

Rick looked down at his hat. “If this hat could 
float out of that well and down here, that stream 
must be quite a little stream all the way,” he said. 

“Yes,” I answered, “and there’s room enough 
between the surface and the rocks so that the hat 
could pass.” 

“Of course,” said Rick, “and maybe more. 
Maybe there’s a way into that place that isn’t over 
the rocks.” 

“And if there is,” I said, “then those men don’t 
know it, for they’d never use that rope if they 
didn’t have to.” 


64 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

^‘Don’t you think they’d be sure to know if 
there was another way in ?” 

^^Yes, I do.” 

“Would you dare to go and try to find out?” 

There was that question about daring again. I 
was so much worked up, after being thought a 
coward so long, that it made me mad to have Rick 
ask me that twice in that afternoon. Besides, this 
was going to be an awfully exciting adventure, I 
could see, and I guess any boy would have liked it. 

“Of course I dare,” I answered. ‘Dare you?” 

“Yes,” Rick said, laughing, with big eyes just 
shining. “Let’s.” 

Well, we didn’t know just how we were to fol- 
low that little stream back up to where it came 
from, for its way led through some pretty tall 
weeds and bushes. But where we were, the bot- 
tom of it was nice and sandy, and we knew there 
couldn’t be many bushes and weeds in the stream 
itself, or the hat couldn’t have come down so eas- 
ily, so we didn’t wait long before we decided to 
take off our shoes and stockings and wade. 


In the Heart of the Rocks 65 

I never thought but what the water would be 
as warm as the river and the lake were, where we 
had been in swimming several times since we 
commenced camping, but when we got our stock- 
ings off and stepped in, it was so cold that it made 
us jump. I guess Rick wanted to back out, too, 
but I wouldn’t then, so we hid our things and 
started. By wading a little ways and then climb- 
ing out on some part of the bank or on a log or 
something, we managed to get along without 
freezing up, too, though I know my feet ached 
pretty hard several times. 

It wasn’t very far, though, and pretty soon we 
came to another little falls, where the water 
dropped down from a place about as high as our 
heads, and when we had climbed up the bank there 
we could see that the stream must come almost 
straight from the rocks where the deep hole was. 
So we kept on through the high brush. We 
couldn’t see far, because so many trees were in 
the way, but we were sure that the direction was 
right. 


66 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 


It was mighty pretty down in that brook. The 
thick bushes on all sides, with the trees high over 
our heads, made almost a roof over us sometimes. 
I guess we couldn’t really see the sky much of the 
time. Logs of fallen trees lay across the stream 
in places, and these were covered with vines and 
moss. Sometimes there were big rocks at the 
sides of the water, on which we would step out 
and get warm, and sometimes there was just grass 
or bushes, bushes, bushes ! We had to climb over 
or crawl under the logs, and sometimes, when 
there wasn’t a warm rock to step out on, we had 
to force our way into the bushes for a place to 
stand, away from the cold water. 

So we climbed and waded and pushed our way 
up to the little rapids and small, foot-high falls, 
and along the more level places where the stream 
ran quiet till, at last, suddenly we came right up 
face to face with rocks — high, big ones, that we 
knew must be part of those we had been on that 
day. And we found that the brook came straight 
out of a hole between two great stones which lay 


In the Heart of the Rocks 67 
together like the two legs of a letter A, with moss 
and twigs all over the tops of them and dirt filling 
the upper part of the crack between them. 

We stopped and looked at that place together. 
It looked pretty queer, for it was only just about 
big enough for a man to go into if he stooped 
down low, and it wasn’t really much too big for 
me. It was dark inside, right from the opening, 
too, for the rocks of the roof overhung so far that 
they shut out the light almost entirely. Then we 
found that the water grew deeper just at the 
opening, though there was still a good gravel bot- 
tom. 

We couldn’t stand still in the brook and look 
the place over very long, for we had to get out 
and get our feet warm again. So we climbed out 
on a big rock, just at one side, and lay there with 
the sun coming down through the trees and on to 
us, to talk about it. 

‘Tt’ll be pretty risky going any farther,” Rick 
said, speaking low, for we both seemed to speak 
low, just naturally, when we got to the rocks, 


68 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
even though we did believe the men had gone 
away for the day. 

‘‘I don’t know,” I answered. ‘‘Maybe it will, 
but I’m going.” 

“Inside?” asked Rick. 

“Yes.” 

“I’d like to, but maybe there’s holes in there 
that we’d fall into.” 

“We’ll have to be awfully careful and feel our 
way.” 

“Maybe there’s snakes in there.” 

“Too cold. Snakes don’t live where it’s so cold. 
I think there is a spring in that hole where the 
men were.” 

Rick was as interested as I was, and, of course, 
a place like that would make any boy want to go 
in and see what it was like. But, after seeing the 
three men put the money down in there and then 
climb out and act so queerly as they had on the 
rocks, I had two other reasons why I wanted to 
go on. One was so that Rick would know I 
wasn’t afraid, and the other because I wanted to 


In the Heart of the Rocks 69 
know whether we could find out, by ourselves, all 
about them and about the place. I was excited 
about it, but I just felt determined that I wouldn’t 
let anything make me back out. 

But Rick was thinking about something el^e, 
and pretty soon he spoke in a quick, but sort of 
scared whisper. 

‘‘Don’t you think maybe those men have got 
Morse hid in these rocks ?” he asked. 

The way he said it made me feel pretty queer, 
though I had already thought of that. And I had 
sort of believed he couldn’t be there, because it 
would be a pretty bad place for a man to have to 
stay very long. Besides, I felt so sure somebody 
would have heard more about Morse, if he was 
still in that part of the country, that I believed he 
had gone. So I answered Rick as if I w^s cer- 
tain. 

“No,” I said. “He couldn’t live in a place like 
that.” 

“Wouldn’t they choose just such a place,” Rick 
insisted, “because there is a spring in there, and 


70 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
because nobody would ever think of going down 
in there unless they knew the rope was there ?” 

“Maybe they would, for that reason, but I 
wouldn’t want to live in an icebox, even in sum- 
mer, would you ?” I asked him. 

“No,” he said; “but he could have a fire down 
there, and we don’t know how much of a cave 
there is. Maybe there’s more room under the 
rocks than shows there by that hole, and maybe 
they could fix it up for him.” 

That didn’t seem very likely to me, but I got 
more curious than ever to try right away to see if 
we could get inside by way of the brook, and see 
what was in there. So I didn’t say any more, but 
just got down into the water again and waded to 
the opening. 

The stones were smooth all over, as if they had 
been washed by the water for a long time, and 
higher up than they were wet now. When I put 
my hand on one of them, and stooped down to 
look into the black hole behind them, I tell you 
the strangeness of it made me sort of wish that it 


In the Heart of the Rocks 71 
was lighter in there, anyway. But I knew how I 
would feel afterwards, if I didn’t go on now, 
whether Rick ever told the other boys or not, so 
I just asked him if he was coming, and then I 
started to crawl in. 

I had a lot of matches in my pocket, but I was a 
little afraid to light any at first. I hadn’t been 
inside a minute, though, before I knew I couldn’t 
get along without them, for I felt every second as 
if I was going to knock my head or step into a 
deep pool or lose hold of the side wall. Just as 
soon as I passed the first rocks, I found there was 
more room, too, and I could stand up straight, 
though I didn’t do it till I had reached up to feel 
for the roof. 

Rick came to the opening in the rocks, just as 
soon as I stepped in, and he blocked out what 
little light might have come in that way, so I 
didn’t try to take another step without striking a 
match. I got one out and scratched it. It was 
one of those with the noiseless heads, you know, 
so it didn’t make a racket. And when the flame 
flared up I saw all around me quite plainly. 


72 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

There were a lot of rocks piled up together, 
leaning against each other, but with space enough 
there at the beginning, so that you could hardly 
reach from one side to the other with your arms 
stretched out. They were dark-gray and brown 
rock, and seemed to be pretty dry. The light of 
the match showed sort of dull on them, and they 
would have looked bright if they had been wet. 
Between them the brook was flowing along in a 
little sand bed, with room enough at one side, 
right there, for you to step out of the water. I 
was glad of that, too, for the water seemed colder 
than ever in there. 

Rick came in after me when he saw the match- 
light, and before the first one went out, he was 
standing beside me on the sand bank. In the dark- 
ness that came the instant I dropped the burnt end 
of the match, we both felt strange. He reached 
out and took hold of my hand, and we talked in 
whispers. I was half ready to make some kind of 
an excuse then to get out of going on, but some- 
thing made me stick to it. 


In the Heart of the Rocks 73 

*‘We can’t burn just matches, Rick,” I said, 
‘‘for they won’t last long, and we can’t really get 
very far with them.” But I lighted another, just 
the same, and began to walk on carefully along 
the sand floor of the cave with Rick following. 
It led right straight in for a little ways, and we 
walked eight or ten feet, I guess, before we came 
to a place where it turned just square to the left, 
with the flat side of a rock standing right at the 
corner in front of us. We stopped there a min- 
ute, and burned two or three more matches, look- 
ing around to see how the rocks were placed. I 
was a little afraid some of them might fall on us 
or behind us, as you hear about their falling in 
mines. But they all looked solid as could be, 
except some little ones that lay on the sand and 
which looked as if they had been there a long 
time. 

The passage through which the stream came 
was a little lower than the first one, and was dark 
as could be, too. I looked back towards the en- 
trance where we had got in, and it showed quite a 


74 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
clear light when we weren’t burning matches, so 
I knew we couldn’t be very near to the other open- 
ing of the cave, or we could see light from there, 
too. 

‘‘It is that it is pretty scary,” Rick whispered. 

“Yes,” I said; “but we’re all right so far. Let’s 
go on a little.” 

So we crept forward again, still finding sand 
enough to walk on without stepping in the water 
very much. And we made another little distance, 
not much more than the first. 

To think that we were now away inside those 
rocks we had been on top of that day, and that we 
hadn’t any idea what sort of place we might find 
ahead of us, except that we were sure the open- 
ing led into the deep well-like place where the 
money was hidden, made us stop talking and sort 
of hold our breath. A fresh match showed us 
that there was another turn, to the right this 
time, just ahead, and it made me a little bit dis- 
couraged, because I thought maybe the way was 
going to be very crooked indeed, and perhaps so 


In the Heart of the Rocks 75 
long that we wouldn’t dare go through it all. It’s 
a good deal harder to go into a place like that than 
you’d think, until you try it, but Rick was so 
game, following me now without a fuss, that I 
wouldn’t for the world stop till I knew all I could 
find out. 

Well, we were quite a while about it, but we 
passed that second turn of the brook, and then 
through a short sort of round place, where we had 
to step into the water again and where it got so 
deep that we only dared go ahead by feeling as 
far as we could along the sand before taking a 
step. But it only came up to our knees, and we 
crossed and found good sand again on the other 
side. And then there was a sudden little turn in 
the rocks to the left and to the right again, and all 
at once the roof came down so far that we thought 
maybe it would touch the water somewhere in the 
darkness ahead. 

But all at once, as the match I was burning just 
then gave out, I saw a light of another kind on 
the brook ahead, where one jagged rock stuck out 


76 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
into it, and, going forward slowly, I stooped down 
and looked out into a wide, open, daylight place, 
all filled with water and almost surrounded with 
rocks. And, in one second, I was certain that 
was the big hole we'd seen first. And, as I stood 
there listening, I heard a sound of splashing, as if 
somebody or some animal out there was working 
or playing in the water. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MAN WHO CLIMBED 

I TURNED around to Rick to warn him to keep 
very still and listen, but I found that he had heard 
just what I had, and so we both stood there in the 
cold brook and bent down, looking and listening. 

The rocks came down within about a foot of 
the water, I think, at the place where the outside 
pool commenced, and we had to bend about double 
to see at all. I stooped and got my trousers all 
wet trying to see better. But all we could tell 
from there was that we must surely be looking out 
into the big hole, as we began to call it, and that 
something seemed to be making splash after 
splash out in the middle or at the farther side. 

I wanted to get clear down where I could get a 


77 


78 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
good look from under the edge of the rocks, for 
we seemed to be pretty safe from sight, in where 
we were, but the water was so cold I knew we 
couldn’t stand it more than a second or two 
longer, so I didn’t dare wade to the very edge. 
We’d been in the water now so much that I was 
almost afraid it might hurt us. My feet ached 
clear in to the bones, and it seemed as if I’d just 
got to get out of it. And just when I was ready 
to move back, Rick pulled my arm and whispered 
that he couldn’t stand it either. 

Well, I was afraid to strike another match right 
there, so we had to feel our way back along the 
rocks without a light, and we were in the water a 
lot more than was any fun before we got to the 
first sand to stand on. Rick was about ready to 
cry, I know, when I lighted a match at last, hold- 
ing my hand between it and the opening to the 
big hole. When I saw how bad he felt I got down 
on the sand and rubbed his feet with my hands to 
help get them warm. And mine got warm while 
I was doing it. Poor little chap ! It did hurt, and 
he’s littler than I am, and as game as he can be. 


The Man Who Climbed 79 

But I made up my mind that we must get out 
of there then, for it was no way to do, to try to 
find out anything more until we could manage it 
without hurting so much. So we talked a little 
about it, and then we started back. 

We’ll keep still about this,” I said. “It’s an 
adventure we don’t have to tell about now, and 
we’ll come back and find out what those men are 
doing in that big hole. It’s too good a place for 
them to leave unless they get scared. I don’t be- 
lieve they know anything about this cave, or, if 
they do, they think nobody else does. And we 
can get in here again, with some rubber boots or 
something, and we’ll find a way to look at them.” 

“I wish the water wasn’t so cold,” Rick said. 
“Then we could undress and crawl to the edge of 
the opening to look out.” 

“Yes — but it is cold!” I answered, “and we’d 
maybe get cramps. We’ll try again, though. 
Let’s get out.” 

So we went back through the round chamber 
and along the passages and out to the sunlit open- 


8o The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
ing where we had come in at first, going pretty 
quickly now, for it was much easier than the first 
trip, on account of our knowing the way and not 
being afraid of holes. And in a few minutes we 
were getting really warm again in the sun on our 
flat rock outside the entrance. 

We didn't talk very loud, for we thought that 
probably the splashing in the pool at the big hole 
was made by somebody who might hear us. It 
wouldn’t have been possible for anybody to see us, 
from the top of the rocks or from any other way, 
for the bushes were so thick that we were in a 
regular house of leaves, except on the side to- 
wards the river, which was lower than we were, 
and where the sun shone in now. 

‘‘What do you s’pose they are doing in that 
place?” Rick asked again. 

“That’s too hard a question for me,” I an- 
swered, and I felt like laughing a little because 
we’d been so excited, and had a really pretty hard 
time in the cold water, and the sun was making 
me feel so much better. 


The Man Who Climbed 8i 

“Do you s'pose they could possibly, maybe, 
have somebody they are keeping prisoner down in 
there ?” Rick asked all at once. 

“No,’' I said quickly. It startled me to think 
of that, but I couldn’t imagine what made Rick 
think of such a thing. 

“I kind of thought there might be some such 
thing, because if they are robbers they might have 
somebody they wanted to keep prisoner.” 

“Who?” 

“Well, just s’pose they were some friends of 
Morse, and they had got Benedict instead of 
Morse, wouldn’t they ” 

“Gee!” I said, interrupting him. “You 
wouldn’t hardly think they could do such a thing, 
would you? And, besides, Morse wasn’t one of 
those men we saw.” 

“He might be around, just the same, mightn’t 
he?” 

I thought about that two or three minutes. If 
these men were Morse’s friends, they must surely 
have Morse with them, but there wasn’t any real 


82 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
reason to believe they were. Still, they were out 
here in the woods not so many miles from where 
Morse was supposed to have been, hiding money 
in a hole in the rocks. The splashing we had 
heard in the pool was surely not going on when 
we were up on the rocks looking in, though, and 
the more I thought about it, the less I believed 
any animal could have made it. For, in the first 
place, no animal would live in a place where men 
came very often, as these men must come, I 
guessed, from the way their rope was worn. In 
the second place, that splashing had sounded more 
as if something was being thrown into the water 
than as if an animal was drinking or swimming 
around or playing. Somebody was there, I was 
sure, and it might be somebody who was being 
kept down there or somebody who had come back 
there while we had been gone. 

Well, while we were sitting there and thinking, 
I happened to look down at the brook below us, 
and I noticed that the water was, all at once, run- 
ning quite roily. It seemed to be all stirred up. 


The Man Who Climbed 83 
and full of mud. I couldn’t understand, for there 
was mostly good sand bottom, both outside the 
cave and inside, and our wading certainly couldn’t 
have made all this difference. 

I watched it for quite a few moments, and I 
could see that the mud came out with the water 
from the cave, and, all at once, the idea that 
somebody was following us from the pool, and 
stirring up all this dirt, came over me so hard 
that I just grabbed hold of Rick and showed it to 
him. 

“Rick,” I said, “somebody’s coming through 
the cave ! See how roiled up the water is !” 

He looked, and then we both jumped up quick. 
But I knew if anybody was coming we couldn’t 
get away down through the creek, for it would be 
slow going unless we made a lot of noise and took 
a chance of hurting our feet pretty bad on the 
stones. So I just turned and jumped right off 
that rock into the bushes behind it, and in a sec- 
ond Rick followed me, and we lay perfectly still 
where we landed among the weeds and grass, with 


84 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

the brush so thick all around that we couldn't see 
a thing. 

Well, we listened and waited and listened and 
waited. We could hear the noise of the brook 
against the stones, and the singing of the crickets 
and the little chirping of the birds, but we couldn’t 
hear anything else. We were where we couldn’t 
see the opening into the cave now, and I believe 
you couldn’t see it from any way except from the 
brook itself, so we couldn’t depend on our eyes. 
And there we sat and sat and sat, hardly daring 
to breathe, and waiting, expecting any minute to 
hear somebody splash out of the cave. I looked 
up at the top of our rock pretty often, for I felt 
all the time as if somebody might be looking over 
it and down on us. But nothing came at all, and 
there wasn’t even the cracking of a stick or rus- 
tling of the leaves to make things any less still. 

It got me mighty nervous after a while, though, 
and I just had to do something, so at last I began 
to get up very slowly and carefully, trying not 
to make a noise. But it was impossible not to 


The Man Who Climbed 85 

make the twigs crack and the leaves and branches 
scrape against me, so finally I gave up being so 
quiet and just stood up and looked across the 
rock. It came up about to my chin on that side, 
and so I could not see the brook itself, and I 
climbed up at once and looked over the other side 
and at the cave entrance. 

It was just as still as ever, and nobody was 
there, but the water was muddy as ever, too. I 
couldn't understand it, for we had been behind the 
rock long enough for anyone to come through the 
cave twice, if anyone had been there, or we might 
have got away down the creek in the same time 
if we had decided to go that way. 

I was still afraid that somebody was inside the 
cave, though, and so I lay still there and listened 
again a minute. Then all at once I thought it was 
no use to stay there, because it might be that the 
mud in the stream came from way back in the 
pool itself where we’d heard the splashing, so I 
motioned to Rick, and we climbed over and down 
into the stream again. 


86 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 


We’d got pretty warm by that time, and we 
knew about how far we had to go and where the 
best footing was, so we hurried out and got along 
faster than we had come up, a good deal, and, 
though we looked back every minute or so, we 
didn’t see anybody or anything but the leaves and 
the trees and the rocks and the water. So we got 
to where we’d left our shoes and stockings, and 
we put them on and were all ready to start for 
camp in just a few minutes. 

And then came the queerest part of all that 
queer day’s adventures. We went down the hill, 
through whatever open places we could find 
among the trees, not trying to follow the stream, 
because it made so many long jumps or falls. And 
pretty soon we were down at the river bank, 
where the trees were more open and we could go 
fast, and we walked as fast and as straight as we 
could toward where we had left our boat. 

It took us quite a while to get there, and it was 
beginning to get towards sunset by the time we 
reached the place where we had tied up that mom- 


The Man Who Climbed 87 

ing. It was a little, low, cove kind of place where 
we had thought the boat would be out of sight 
from the river, and where we could safely leave 
it. But when we got nearer to the shore of the 
little inlet, Rick, who was ahead just then, stopped 
so suddenly that I ran right into him, and when 
I looked ahead, where he was pointing, I saw a 
very queer-looking person standing down beside 
where our boat was tied. 

I suppose it was because we were both so full 
of thought about the men we’d seen and the cave 
and all that we were afraid of this man, too, for 
it was a man. He stood with his back towards 
us, and we couldn’t even see what he looked like, 
except that he was not a very big man. But he 
was looking all around him on the ground, as if 
he had lost something, and from where we stood, 
upon the bank above him, he seemed to be examin- 
ing the tracks in the mud at the water side. 

I knew he couldn’t be one of the men from the 
big rocks after I’d looked at him a minute, for 
he wasn’t tall enough for the tall one, nor short 


88 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
enough for the short one, nor fat enough for the 
fat one, and his clothes were different from any 
of them. He had on some old sort of overall- 
looking clothes, and looked very rough indeed. 
And on his legs were some queer-looking things, 
strapped on, and we didn’t know what they were 
then. But while we stood there looking, not really 
knowing whether we wanted to go down where 
he was or not, he suddenly dropped down on a 
little knoll of grass and began to measure one of 
the tracks on the shore with a stick and to com- 
pare it with the size of his own foot. And we 
thought we understood the things on his legs 
then, for they looked like ankle braces. 

It seemed so queer to us how he looked and 
what he was doing that Rick and I made up our 
minds to watch some more, and we drew back 
behind a tree. And then, while the man went on 
measuring and looking, and measuring and look- 
ing, and measuring again, we stood there and 
wondered. 

But pretty soon he got up from his place and 


The Man Who Climbed 89 
climbed into the boat, examining it all over, inside 
and out, even finding the fishline under the front 
seat and looking at that. But he put everything 
back, just as it had been, acting as if he wanted 
to be careful not to leave it disturbed, and then 
he slowly walked around the cave to the other 
side. 

When he looked back from the other side, 
though, we both found out something we hadn’t 
seen before, and that was that he was a colored 
man. It seemed funny to me afterwards that we 
hadn’t noticed before, but I suppose that was be- 
cause he wasn’t very black, and we had only seen 
his hands and the back of his neck. 

Well, he stood there looking and looking, and 
seemed to be waiting. And he looked up at the 
woods all around and out on the water and up at 
the sun, which was getting pretty low down now 
towards setting. And we thought he never would 
move again. But, after a long while, he seemed 
suddenly to think of something, and he turned 
and climbed up the bank opposite us, pretty quick, 


90 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
and next minute he began to climb a tree that 
stood near the edge. And then we knew in a 
second what the things on his legs were. They 
were climbing-irons, like telephone men have in 
the city. They have sharp points you can stick 
into a pole or a tree, and which hold you up so 
you can climb very fast. And he went up the tree 
as easy as could be. In another minute he was 
up among the leaves and out of sight, and you 
wouldn’t have known that he was there at all, if 
you hadn’t seen him climb up. 

But after he was up there, he suddenly kept so 
still that we didn’t know what to make of it, until 
I thought that the reason he had gone was just so 
that he could watch who would come to the boat. 
And then I whispered to Rick that we might just 
as well go, for we couldn’t stay there. And it 
wouldn’t hurt us to have him just see us. So, 
after a few minutes, we walked out on the bank 
and went down to the boat, acting as if we hadn’t 
seen him at all and didn’t know he was there. 


CHAPTER VII 


A MANY-SIDED PUZZLE 

I THINK when you know a person is hidden 
away somewhere near and is watching you it is 
very hard to act as if you didn’t know it. I’ve 
tried it when we were playing games or some- 
thing like that. But when we knew that the negro 
in the tree must have climbed up there to watch 
and find out who owned the boat, and when we 
felt that he was looking down on us from up 
there among the thick leaves, it was all Rick and 
I could do to be natural. 

We got the boat ready to push off into the 
water and untied her painter, and Rick had 
climbed in before I realized that we were keeping 
as still as if it were we who were hiding instead 
91 


92 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
of the man in the tree, and that, if we didn’t talk 
some, he would suspect we had seen him. So I 
commenced with the first thing that came into my 
head. 

“Rick,” I said, quite loud, looking around, 
“isn’t this about the loneliest place you ever saw ?” 

Rick looked at me quickly, with his eyes open- 
ing up wide, but I winked at him, and he under- 
stood pretty easily. 

“Yes,” he said then, standing up and looking 
around, too. “It doesn’t seem as if anybody ever 
came here, does it?” 

“I don’t believe anybody does very much,” I 
answered. “There’s nothing to come for.” 

I pushed the boat out into the water and 
climbed in. Rick sat down by the rudder and I 
put the oars in the rowlocks and commenced to 
row easy and as if I wasn’t in a bit of a hurry. 

“Next time we’ll go across over on to the other 
side,” Rick said. 

Neither of us looked up at the tree for quite a 
while, until we were pretty well out into the river. 


A Many-Sided Puzzle 93 

and then, when I did look, I couldn’t see anything 
at all among the branches. 

“Wasn’t that a funny thing?” I said to Rick in 
a low voice. “He was trying to track somebody.” 

“Yes,” answered Rick. “He’s hunting for 
someone, I am thinking. Did you look at the 
tracks in the mud?” 

“No. I was afraid to. I thought he’d suspect 
that we’d seen him.” 

“You wouldn’t think he’d be measuring our 
tracks, would you?” 

“I don’t know. Why should he measure any 
at all?” 

“That seems very queer. If it was he was 
trying to trace somebody and had the size of his 
boots, he might measure the tracks to see if they 
could be made by that person.” 

“Yes. But maybe he made a lot of tracks him- 
self around our boat before he noticed any others, 
and was just trying to find out which were his, by 
comparing the size with his own boots.” 

Rick laughed. “You think of the things that 


94 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
have a reason/’ he said in his funny way of twist- 
ing words up. ‘That is, of course, just what he 
was doing. And he probably climbed up in the 
tree so as to hide better than he could on the 
ground, while he could also see better.” 

“I guess so,” I said. 

I had rowed pretty well out of the mouth of 
the river into the lake now, and we were not 
afraid of being heard. I was full of excitement 
over everything that had happened, and I could 
see that Rick felt just as I did. He could hardly 
sit still. I didn’t know just what I ought to do, 
though. I didn’t know sure that there was any- 
thing wrong about either the men we’d seen on 
the rocks or the negro man, and yet we couldn’t 
feel any way but very suspicious about it. I was 
wondering if I ought to tell somebody right away, 
and get somebody to go with us back to the cave 
and try to get a good look at the big hole in the 
rocks, or maybe to catch the men there and find 
out what they were doing. I wished Captain 
Benson was where I could tell him quick all about 


A Many-Sided Puzzle 95 
it, and I was thinking whether I hadn’t better 
write to him right away, when Rick asked me a 
question that gave me a lot of new thoughts. 

‘‘Do you think. Witter, that negro could have 
been a detective in disguise, looking for the men 
we saw ?” 

Well, that seemed possible, right away. 

“He might have been, of course,” I said, “if 
the men on the rocks had done anything out of 
the way.” 

“Don’t you think they are robbers?” 

“We can’t possibly tell. They had a lot of 
money there, and I can’t see why they’d be hiding 
it unless there was something wrong about it.” 

“They didn’t come down the hill towards our 
boat, so it couldn’t have been their tracks there 
which the negro was looking at,” said Rick. 

“No,” I answered. “But he might have been 
looking for them, just the same.” 

“Maybe he was looking for somebody else.” 

“Perhaps.” 

“He might be, perhaps, one of their gang even. 


96 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
on guard down at the river bank because they 
feared they might be followed.” 

‘‘Yes, he might be that, too.” 

“Or he might be somebody that hadn’t anything 
to do with them in any way. It’s funny he had 
those climbing-irons.” 

“He might be just a linesman putting a farm- 
er’s telephone line through the woods along the 
river,” I said, beginning to think maybe we were 
getting sort of foolish about it all. 

“Yes,” said Rick, but he suddenly turned and 
looked at me with his eyes just burning. “And 
he might have been an officer looking in these 
woods for the man Morse.” 

I jumped, I guess, because that idea hadn’t even 
occurred to me, and in that second I made up my 
mind that Rick and I hadn’t any business to keep 
still about all these queer things, and to try to 
find out for ourselves about such men, no matter 
how much I wanted to do something I could crow 
about. 

“Rick !” I said, “I guess I will write to Captain 


A Many-Sided Puzzle 97 
Benson just as soon as we get home and tell him 
everything weVe seen, because these men maybe 
ought to be followed and caught, and we won't 
know how to do it right, and we may just do 
something foolish or get hurt, or only warn them 
to get away. It’s just as likely that the negro be- 
longs to that gang in the rocks as it is that he’s 
searching for them, and it’s just as likely that 
he may be a friend of Morse as it is that he is 
tracking him. I know it would be foolish for us 
not to tell what we’ve seen.” 

‘‘Mr. Lally?” asked Rick. 

“No. I know what he’d do. He’d tell the 
town marshal at Frayne, and maybe then we 
wouldn’t get any credit, or Captain Benson, either. 
I’ll write to Captain Benson.” 

I wasn’t very well satisfied with any of the 
ideas we had thought of about the negro, but the 
thing Rick had said, about his being possibly after 
Morse, seemed to stick in my mind. I had really 
come to believe that Morse wasn’t in that part of 
the country at all, but I began to think that if any- 


98 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
one was still trying to follow him up there in the 
woods, there must be some good reason for be- 
lieving he was there. Somehow, I sort of came to 
the idea that it must be true that this man was at 
least trying to follow Morse, and then I began to 
believe that perhaps he might be the very man 
who had been sent by Captain Benson to see Flora 
and who was not out in the woods just looking 
for the escaped prisoner. 

Well, Rick and I talked and talked about it all, 
but we couldn’t decide what we believed, and 
when we got away down the lake to the camp, the 
only thing we were sure about was that we would 
not tell any of the boys, but that I would just 
write to Captain Benson, and see what he said. 

‘‘But it won’t do any hurt for us to go up to 
the cave again,” I said, because I didn’t want to 
give up the chance of knowing all we could, and 
it was as exciting as it could be to think of spy- 
ing on the men there. 

So, when we had had supper that night, I went 
away from the rest, into the tent where I slept. 


A Many-Sided Puzzle 99 
and wrote a letter to Captain Benson and told 
him all about what had happened to us that day. 
Rick stayed with Mr. Lally and the boys, so that 
they wouldn’t think we were trying to keep any- 
thing from them. They had asked us some ques- 
tions about where we’d been that day, but we 
hadn’t told them much, and had made them be- 
lieve we hadn’t had much fun, which was true, 
too. And I marked the envelope ‘Personal” for 
him, too, so nobody but he would read it. 

Before I got my letter done, though, one of the 
boys came in, and brought two letters for me. We 
had our mail all sent to the Little Fern Hotel, 
which was not very far from where we were camp- 
ing, and he had been down to get whatever there 
was. 

One of the letters was from my Aunt Margaret 
Whitehead, asking me when I would be coming 
down to her farm, and how long we were going 
to camp, and I didn’t think it was of any great 
importance then, though it turned out to be in a 
very strange way. The other letter was from 
Flora, and I will write that here just as it was. 


lOO The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘Tear Witter : Since your letter came I have 
not heard from Morse. Captain Benson sent a 
man up here and he tried putting a note out where 
I was told to put it, and watching to see who 
came. But no one came, and he decided that some 
of the old gang who knows me had tried to make 
people believe Morse was up here, when he is 
really somewhere else. I’ve got some more start- 
ling news for you, though I’m not so much fright- 
ened as I was. The papers say that Benedict has 
disappeared from the place where he had been liv- 
ing in the city. It happened several days ago. 
You know he had promised the police that he 
wouldn’t leave the city, and he had to report every 
little while. Well, he’s gone, and they found his 
room in the house where he lived, all torn up, as 
if there had been a struggle in it — as if he’d had 
an awful fight there with somebody, and, of 
course, they all believe Morse must have come 
there. I don’t know what to think. 

‘T would be frightened for father and Fred, if 
I thought anybody knew where they are. They 


A Many-Sided Puzzle loi 
kept it secret when they went South to work this 
summer, though. 

‘‘I wish you would come over and see me. I’d 
like to talk about a lot of things that seem queer 
to me. Can’t you ride over from camp, on the car 
or a horse or in a carriage or something, juot tor 
a day? Your friend, 

' ‘Flora Midgely.’’ 

Well, it made me feel sort of scared again to 
read that letter. To think that Morse could keep 
from getting caught for such a long time, and to 
be uncertain where he might turn up at any min- 
ute, was bad enough. But to be pretty sure that 
he had at least made one try to be revenged on 
Benedict just made me shiver. I could imagine 
what a terrible man Morse would be, and I 
couldn’t help thinking that he had almost as much 
reason to hate me as he had to hate Benedict. I 
remembered the time when he was first captured 
by the policeman with Mr. Benson after I had 
given the news of where he was. I rode in the 


102 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
same patrol wagon with Morse when he was taken 
to the station, and he looked at me in such a 
queer way. And I remembered again, too, how 
he used to laugh — such a disagreeable laugh — a 
sort of horrible way, so quiet and as if he wasn’t 
really feeling like laughing at all. And I sat there 
in the tent and felt so lonesome that I got out 
pretty soon and went over to the beach where the 
boys were sitting around a fire listening to Mr. 
Lally tell stories. 

I wish I could tell about all the fun the boys 
had that camping time, and all the other things 
that were going on besides the adventures Rick 
and I were having. But it would take too long, 
so ril just have to tell what happened. 

Well, I told Rick about what Flora had writ- 
ten, that night, and he said it would be a good 
scheme for me to go over to the Frayne Lake 
Sanitarium, where she was, the very next day, so 
as to talk with her and find out all the queer things 
she had mentioned, while we were waiting to hear 
from Captain Benson. And, after we had thought 


A Many-Sided Puzzle 103 
about that a little, we decided I should do it. So 
the next morning I told Mr. Lally what I wanted 
to do. He was willing I should go, but, better 
than that, he had a dandy surprise for me, too. 

*‘You can ride a pony, can’t you?” he asked 
me, when I told him that the place I meant to go 
to was only about twelve or fourteen miles away. 

I answered yes, of course, because I had ridden 
a pony a little that year at school, and he knew 
it. Two or three of us boys used to go out riding 
for fun on livery-stable ponies at St. Croix, and of 
course Mr. Lally had seen us. 

“Well, there’s a good pony or two in the barn 
at Little Fern Hotel. You could just as well get 
one as not.” 

I was mighty glad about that, and made up my 
mind to ride. And I would have asked Rick to 
go, too, but he doesn’t like to ride horseback. So 
I went and got a pony with Mr. Lally, and got 
ready to start just as soon after breakfast as I 
could. He was a fine little black fellow, not so 
small as a Shetland, but not very big — just right. 


104 Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
I thought. Ard he was gentle, too, and could run 
besides. 

You know how it feels to get on horseback 
when you haven't been for a ride for quite a while. 
It just sort of thrills you to feel the pony’s body 
move under you and to know that he’s alive and 
strong and can go. And it’s so nice to feel that 
you can manage him and make him go where you 
want him to, and that, if you’re good to him, he’ll 
do almost anything you want. This little fellow 
was a dandy, and I didn’t really need the whip I 
took at all. 

Well, I started. There were two roads I could 
take, the one that led down the valley through 
the woods, above the river, which was the short- 
est, and one which went along the very top of 
the bluffs above the ravine and which was two 
miles longer. I made up my mind to go along 
the high road, as they called it, because I could 
see much farther, and it wouldn’t be so lonely. I 
thought I might come back the other way, though, 
because I was kind of curious to ride somewhere 


A Many-Sided Puzzle 105 
near where the rocks in the woods were. They 
couldn’t be so very far below the woods road, as 
people called that way, and I just wanted to know 
if possibly I could find out something more about 
them. 

I didn’t carry any lunch, because I would get 
some at Frayne. I could easily ride over in two 
hours if I went right along, and it was only eight 
when I started, but Mr. Lally gave me some 
money, because he was keeping mine for me, to 
buy lunch and feed for the pony, and to have a 
little besides if I should need it. And that was 
how I happened to get into a new adventure that 
ended more strangely than the one the day be- 
fore. 


CHAPTER VIII 


ON THE WOODS ROAD 

Nothing much happened for the first hour I 
was out on my way, and the riding was fine, but 
the first queer thing that came to me was when I 
stopped in front of a little country store at a 
cross-road, to give the pony a drink. 

It was a little bit of a place, and there were 
only two houses besides the store at the cross- 
roads. But when I rode up there were four or 
five men talking out under the board awning over 
the sidewalk. As I pulled the pony up to the 
horse-trough, one of the men turned to look at 
me. He was a farmer, I guess, and I never have 
seen him before or since that time. But he seemed 
to be interested in me the minute he looked at me, 

io6 


On the Woods Road 107 

for he turned and said something to the others, 
and in a second they all looked at me, too. 

It was sort of embarrassing, but I drove the 
pony up to the trough and let him get his nose 
into the water, trying not to pay any attention to 
them. When I looked up again, though, one man 
was coming over towards me, and the second I 
looked at him I was startled, for he was a negro, 
and somehow he reminded me right away of the 
colored man we had seen the day before. I sup- 
pose it must have been his clothes, for I hadn’t 
been near enough to him to really remember just 
how his face looked. And he was holding a bank- 
bill in his hand and just ready to speak to me. 

As I looked into his face, though, a queer sort 
of thing happened. He had been laughing, as 
negroes always seem to do so much, and when he 
saw my face his laugh just went away quick, and 
he almost stopped still, instead of coming on, and 
made a funny noise with his lips, as if he was 
astonished to see me. 

It was hard for me to look at him, for I was 


io8 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
sure he remembered me as one of the boys he had 
seen the day before. But why he should be start- 
led, I couldn’t guess, because I didn’t think he 
knew that Rick and I had seen him. In a minute, 
though, I thought perhaps if he was a detective, as 
I was pretty near sure, he might have some reason 
for being sorry that I should see him here at this 
place, because of some plan he had or because he 
wasn’t really certain we hadn’t seen him climb 
the tree in the woods. 

But he came on with his grin coming back, in 
just a minute, and then he began to talk to me in 
a way that explained his funny manixer, partly. 

‘‘Why, excuse me, boss,” he said, calling me 
boss just as he might a man, “but I seen you be- 
fore somewhere, ain’t I?” 

I can’t write it just as he said it, because I don’t 
know how, but anybody knows how a negro talks 
who hasn’t been to school. But I was getting 
surer and surer that he was a detective every min- 
ute, because everything put together made me 
think so. So I answered in a way that would let 


On the Woods Road 


109 

him know, I thought, that I had seen him the day 
before, but wouldn’t tell anybody. 

“Yesterday?” I asked. 

His face sobered again a little, and he looked 
at me queerer than ever, but he shook his head. 
“No,” he said. “Not yesterday, unless you come 
a long ways, too, boss. ’Cause I was a good many 
miles away from here yesterday. Maybe you 
lived down to the city last year, though,” he add- 
ed. “I think I done work for your pa.” 

“Oh!” I said. I didn’t know what to say to 
that, for I knew it wasn’t so, of course. If he 
was a real negro, or if he wasn’t our officer, then 
I was sure I never saw him at home. But if he 
was disguised, then I couldn’t tell who he was. 
I thought all at once that he might be Captain 
Benson himself, but I knew he couldn’t be, as I 
looked at him, because he wasn’t nearly so strong- 
looking. 

“Would you mind telling me your name, boss ?” 
he asked me, in a minute. “I sure seem to re- 
member you.” 


no The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘‘My name’s Witter Whitehead,” I said, “and 
I live in the city.” Then I thought of another 
idea to let him know what I was thinking, so that 
he would understand, if he was a detective, and so 
that it wouldn’t mean anything to him if he 
wasn’t. 

“I’m a friend of Captain Benson’s,” I said. 

He grinned again, and then he stood looking at 
me queerly for quite a long second. Then, all at 
once, he seemed to remember something, and he 
held out the bill he had in his hand. 

“I’m tryin’ to get change for this, boss,” he 
told me. “Would you happen to have it by you?” 

It was a two-dollar bill, I could see now, and 
I could change it, for I had about four or five 
dollars in my pocket, and some of it was in halves 
and quarters. So I said yes right away. Just 
then, though, the pony finished drinking and 
raised his head and turned as if he wanted to 
go on, so I had to hold up the lines. As I did 
that, the negro put his hand out so quick, and 
caught hold of the reins so suddenly, that it 


On the Woods Road iii 

seemed as if he must have thought I was trying to 
get away. But he laughed again in a second. 

‘‘Thought he was goin’ to run with you, boss,'’ 
he said, to excuse himself. 

The pony stood still then, and so I took my 
money out and gave him two halves and four 
quarters for his bill. All the time, though, I was 
wondering if maybe I ought not to try again to 
find out sure who he was, and then, if he turned 
out to be Captain Benson's man, to tell him the 
things I knew. But when he had turned the silver 
over in his hand once or twice, he just let go of 
the bridle and stepped back. 

“Thanks, boss," he said. “These gentlemen 
didn't seem to have the two dollars with 'em to- 
day," waving his hand at the farmers who had 
been watching us all the time. And then, when 
I thought that would sort of make them mad, they 
all just laughed, and looked at me, as if I'd done 
something that was funny. I couldn't see what it 
was, but I was quite a little embarrassed now, 
for I didn't know what to make of the way the 


1 12 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
negro acted. So I just got sort of mad myself, 
and started the pony. And next minute I was 
galloping off down the road. 

Well, by the time I got to Frayne, I didn’t care 
any more about the farmers laughing, but I had 
thought a lot of things about the negro. The 
way he had looked at me and asked me my name 
made me believe pretty strongly that he had seen 
me at home, sometime when I had been at the 
police station with Captain Benson. I couldn’t 
understand at all about the two dollars, unless he 
had just been trying to change it as an excuse 
for asking questions of the farmers, and then had 
had to ask me, because one of them had suggested 
I might be able to change it. Of course they knew 
I must be a resorter, as they call people who come 
to the lakes for vacations, and so I supposed they 
thought it was a joke to make me change the 
money for a negro. 

I found Flora at the sanitarium. It was a 
pretty place, like a hotel, right on the high bank 
above Lake Frayne, and on the edge of the little 


On the Woods Road 113 

town called Frayne. There was a stable there 
where I could put up the pony, and I did, and then 
Flora and I went and sat on the porch to talk over 
things till lunch time. 

When I first knew Flora Midgely, she was a 
little lame girl, as I told about in the story of the 
silver thieves. She had to go on crutches then, 
but now she was just about well, after her opera- 
tion, and after staying a long time at this sani- 
tarium where Mr. Fleming had sent her. She was 
a mighty nice girl, too, and she thought I was her 
best friend, because we’d had the other adven- 
ture together. 

So that day I told her right away about every- 
thing that had happened, and she was as much in- 
terested as anybody could be, for she knew Morse 
and Benedict and all the rest of the gang well, 
because they tried to get her father into trouble so 
he would have to join them, you know, and he 
and Flora did live in the same house with them 
at one time. 

But after I had told her all that had happened 


1 14 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
to me, and all the things I had thought, she told 
me some things, too, and they fitted in so queerly 
with my story that I was astonished. 

“Fve seen that negro,” she said, when I had 
got all through my story. It was like her to keep 
still about such a thing till I had finished all I had 
to say. “He came here to see me once, after the 
officer Captain Benson sent had gone.” 

“He did? Then he is the detective!” 

“Why do you think so ?” 

“Because I think he’s probably disguised him- 
self so as to look around for Morse.” 

“Well, but listen,” said Flora. “Did I tell you 
about how the note came to me from Morse — or 
the one I thought was from Morse? It was 
signed L. M., and was in his writing, or so much 
like it I believed it was his.” 

“No, you didn’t tell me. I wondered about 
that, too.” 

“Well, a negro brought it to the sanitarium and 
left it for me, one day when I was out. I didn’t 
see him, and the clerk who received the note 


On the Woods Road 115 

couldn’t tell me anything except that the man was 
a negro.” 

Well, that made me feel queer, in spite of the 
fact that I knew there must be other negroes — 
perhaps a good many in that neighborhood, be- 
sides the one I’d seen. 

‘'But what did he come for, after the detective 
had gone ?” I asked her. 

“He brought me a note from the detective tell- 
ing me not to worry, and that Morse had left this 
part of the country, if he was ever here.” 

I just stared when she told me that. I certainly 
couldn’t understand at all. If the negro was the 
detective he couldn’t have been the one who 
brought Morse’s note. If he was Morse’s man, he 
couldn’t have brought the note from the detective. 
There must surely be two different negroes. And 
yet it seemed very strange. 

“You saw him the second time he came?” I 
asked. 

“Yes,” she answered, “if it was the second 
time — if he was the same negro who came the 
first time.” 


ii6 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

I was getting sort of confused, but I thought 
maybe I understood. 

“Maybe it’s all a clever game of the detective, 
from the very beginning,” I said. 

“I really believe it is,” Flora answered. 

“But I think you’d better write it all to Captain 
Benson, just as I wrote all about what happened 
to me,” I told her. “He would know right away 
just what is the real truth, and he ought to know 
everything that happens.” 

Well, we talked about that, and I told her all 
the things I had written to Captain Benson, and 
how I had marked the letter “Personal,” and so 
she said she would write that very night, and tell 
him everything that had happened to her, and all 
that she thought it meant, too. 

We had dinner together at the sanitarium, and 
we walked around and looked at all the pretty 
places out at Frayne, and I took Flora for a boat 
ride on the lake in the afternoon, and we had a 
good time. At four o’clock, though, I thought I’d 
better start back home, and so I said good-by and 
went and got the pony. 


On the Woods Road 117 

I paid for keeping the pony and for his feed, 
and started out feeling fine, and I was so much 
interested in all we’d been talking about that I 
was eager to ride home by the woods road. I 
wasn’t afraid, for I didn’t believe that anybody 
would have any reason to suspect that I knew any- 
thing about the men in the rocks or Morse or 
anybody else, and, of course, there wouldn’t be a 
reason why any of these men should bother me 
unless they thought I knew about them. Besides, 
I thought it was about impossible that I would 
have a chance of seeing them. 

But I didn’t know all the things that could 
happen, and I galloped down into the shady woods 
road, just as jolly as I had started out that morn- 
ing, and having just as much fun. And I rode 
half way home without anything happening at all 
that was out of the ordinary. 

But as I got to the place which I thought must 
be near a point above the rocks in the woods, I 
got more curious than ever over them, and wished 
and wished I could find out something more by 


ii8 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
myself. And the more I thought about it the 
more I wanted to try. I knew I ought not to do 
anything that would be dangerous or that might 
alarm the men in the rocks if they should happen 
to catch me. But when I remembered the cave 
and how easy it had been for Rick and me to get 
in there and look into the pool, I had a great no- 
tion to try it. 

I hadn’t decided just what I would do, and was 
just thinking it over, when I came to a place in 
the woods where a path turned off and went down 
the hill at a slant that made it not too steep for 
the pony, and, all at once, I just turned his head 
that way, saying to myself that I would ride a 
little ways, anyhow, and maybe just find a place 
where I could get a look through the trees at that 
gully and the rocks. 

I sort of thought that the path I went into must 
be the one that led down to the gully, because it 
was the only path I’d seen since I came into the 
woods. I knew there wouldn’t be any path where 
Rick and I had come up from the river, unless 


On the Woods Road 119 

people came up that way, and so I knew there 
must be an end to that path somewhere on the 
woods road, and I was sure this was it. 

Well, I hadn’t ridden very far through the trees 
when I heard somebody on the path ahead of me, 
and pretty soon I saw two men coming. I didn’t 
know who they were at first, I think, but before 
I’d looked at them more than a minute, I did, and 
then I would have turned around and galloped 
back to the road mighty quick if I could. 

It was so foolish of me to show that I was 
afraid, that I’m always ashamed of it now, but 
it’s part of the story, so I can’t leave it out, even 
if it was fair to do it. The minute I recognized 
the men in the path, and saw them look up at me, 
I just reined up the pony quick as could be. I 
must have just looked scared all over, too, I guess, 
for the men seemed to see right away that I was 
acting queer, and I guess that made them suspi- 
cious. 

Of course you can guess who they were — the 
tall man and the short, strong one, whom we had 


120 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
seen on the rocks, and they both stopped and stood 
still, too, when they looked at me. 

But I was slow to think what I could do, and 
didn’t do anything, and they were quick, and 
acted right away. In a minute the tall man had 
come up to the pony, and was looking up at me 
sharp and hard, and His hand went slowly out and 
took hold of the pony’s bridle while he looked. 
And then — oh, I just shiver now, as I remember 
I looked down into his face, and in that second 
I knew him — in spite of his close-shaved beard 
that used to be long and gray, and in spite of his 
close-cut hair that had been curly, I knew him. 
It was Benedict — the old man of the curiosity 
store, who had been one of Morse’s gang of silver 
thieves, and for whom Morse was now believed 
to be hunting for revenge. 


CHAPTER IX 


OLD ENEMIES 

I don^’t believe 1 can tell how I felt. The man’s 
face was all gray and pale, and he looked sort of 
sick, but his eyes were so bright that they seemed 
as if they just looked straight inside of me and 
could see everything I was thinking about, as well 
as the things in my face. And I noticed such 
queer things about him, too. His beard had com- 
menced to grow again a little, and the whiskers 
were all stiff, gray, little bristles all around his 
chin and up on the sides of his cheeks, and even 
around his neck. And while he looked up at me 
he put his hand up and ran his fingers all around 
his mouth, as if he was gathering the whiskers 
together to pull them, and his hand sort of stopped 

I2I 


122 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
at his chin, as if it was disappointed because it 
didn’t find anything to pull. And the white parts 
of his eyes were all lined with little fine lines of 
red — ^bloodshot, father says people call it — as if 
he was awfully tired. 

It was a scary-looking face, that I can see as 
plain as can be now when I try. I couldn’t help 
showing that I knew him any more than if he had 
been Rick, and I sort of jumped away from his 
hand, because I couldn’t help that, either. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked me, and that 
was the first thing he said after he had stood there 
watching me for a minute. 

It was very hard to answer him, for I knew my 
voice was going to shake before I spoke. I was 
scared, but that wasn’t the only reason, and I don’t 
know why I did shake so inside. But I tried aw- 
fully hard to talk right up as if I wasn’t afraid. 

“Nothing,” I answered him. “What’s the mat- 
ter with you?” 

“Don’t get smart,” he answered. “Where are 
you going?” 


Old Enemies 


123 

‘'Doesn’t this road go through to the river?” I 
asked. I hardly knew what I was saying, but I 
was trying just to answer something that would 
sound all right. 

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t — and no horse can 
go down much farther than this.” 

“Oh!” I said. “I’ll turn around again, then.” 

I couldn’t look in his eyes any longer, for I 
knew him so well, and so many things I remem- 
bered about him were running through my mind 
that I was sure he would know. And in a minute 
he let me know that he did. 

“What are you trembling about?” he asked, 
and he put his hand on mine on the bridle. 

I drew away quick. “You let me alone I” I ex- 
claimed, just sort of hollering it out at him, be- 
cause I couldn’t hold in. And then, all at once, 
I just got desperate, for I couldn’t imagine what 
he’d do to me there alone in the woods. And I 
gathered up the loose ends of my bridle and just 
dug my heels into the pony as sudden as I could, 
and just wild to get away. 


124 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

And the pony jumped like anything. You 
know a riding-horse will jump if you dig your 
heels into his sides suddenly like that, and this 
little pony was lively. He made a jump first and 
then he tried to pull his head away from Benedict. 
And then, when the man wouldn’t let go, he 
backed out of the path and jerked his head and 
started to try to stand up on his hind feet. 

But Benedict held on, and just the minute the 
fuss started the other man made a quick little run 
and in a second was at the other side of my bridle. 

‘‘What’s the matter here?” he cried up at me 
as he grabbed the bit, and his strong hands held 
the pony down as if it had been just play. 

“Whoa, boy ! Whoa !” he said to the little fel- 
low, and managed him as if he knew just how. 
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked me 
again. 

But I was too much frightened to think 
straight, and the only idea I had in the world was 
to get away. 

“You let go of me!” I shouted, and I jerked 


Old Enemies 


125 

at the lines, and then, all at once, I leaned over and 
struck at Benedict with the whip I had, because 
I thought maybe he'd let go then. I don't know 
what I thought, really. I felt that I must just 
fight and strike and tear, and in a half a minute 
the pony was just the same, and he commenced to 
jump and jerk under me till I had to hang on to 
the saddle to keep from being thrown. And then, 
all at once, the short man made a leap at me and 
caught me by the coat and just dragged me out 
of the saddle and down to the ground, and I fell 
over and over among the leaves till my head hit 
hard against the root of a tree which stuck up, 
and I just turned sick all over. 

Have you ever done anything like getting into 
a fuss over nothing, which you felt awfully bad 
about afterwards, but which you seemed unable 
to keep from getting into at the time? Well, just 
the minute that I knew my chance to get away 
was gone, I felt that I'd made an awful big mis- 
take, and been more foolish than I'd ever been in 
my life. If I had succeeded in getting away I 


126 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
would have thought it was pretty smart, I guess, 
but I felt anything else but smart when I struck 
the ground so hard that it nearly took my breath 
away, and banged my head against the root so 
that my eyes saw queer things. People say they 
see stars when they hit their heads hard, but that 
isn’t what it seems like to me. It seems as if 
water was splashing in front of my eyes, just as it 
does when you hit a pool with a flat stick, and it 
made me stop fighting right there, because I 
couldn’t tell which way to fight. 

I lay still after a second, because I didn’t know 
what to do next, and then I heard the pony’s feet 
just pounding around on the soft ground, and a 
great scramble and scratching among the leaves 
and sticks. And then, when it stopped, I opened 
my eyes, and there was Benedict bending over me, 
and there, a little ways away, was the other man 
holding still to the pony’s bridle, and quieting him, 
now that I was off his back. 

“You little rascal, you!” Benedict said to me. 
“Get up!” 


Old Enemies 


127 

I couldn’t get up very well for a second, for I 
was dizzy, and I just lay still and looked up at 
him. In a minute, though, he reached down and 
grabbed me, and pulled me up on my knees. And 
then he slapped me, right in the face, with his 
hand. ‘‘Get up !” he cried again, in a sort of snarl- 
ing way. 

Well, I got up, of course. There wasn’t any- 
thing else to do. 

“What did you do that for ?” asked Benedict. 

“You let me alone!” I said. 

“What did you hit me for, you little duffer?” 
he asked. “I’ve a notion to knock your head 
against a tree !” 

But he didn’t do that. Instead, he reached down 
and took my chin in his fingers and forced me to 
look up at him, and then he just shook me, he was 
so mad. But he spoke to the other man. 

“Do you know who this is ?” he asked, and his 
voice told me that he was sort of scared and wor- 
ried and mad all at once. “This is the little 
monkey that made all our trouble last year when 


128 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
Morse was taken.” Then he looked down at me 
again. “And you remembered me, too, didn’t 
you ?” he said. 

Of course he wouldn’t have said that if he 
hadn’t known that I did remember him, so I gave 
up then, and just stood still and looked up at him 
and waited. I didn’t know what he would do. I 
couldn’t even imagine, for I knew now that, what- 
ever was being done down there in the rocks, with 
the money the men had hidden, it wasn’t honest 
when he had anything to do with it. And when 
he asked me again if I knew him I just nodded, 
because there was no use pretending I didn’t. 

The man with the pony led the little fellow for- 
ward now, and stood looking at me, and the pony 
looked over his shoulder at me, too. 

“Here's a pretty pass, Castle,” said Benedict, 
acting as if he was just furious to have me on his 
hands. “What are we to do now? The boy 
knows me.” 

He looked down at me again. 

“Where’d you come from?” asked the man 
Castle, looking me all over. 


Old Enemies 


129 

‘^IVe been over at Frayne,” I said, as well as 
I could, for I was all shaken up and could hardly 
talk. 

“Where are you going ?’^ 

“Home,’’ I said. 

“You don’t live up here,” said Benedict. 

“I live in the city,” I answered. “I’m camping 
at Little Fern Lake.” 

“Why did you try to come down this path?” 
asked Benedict. 

I just looked at him. I didn’t want to say why, 
of course. 

“Where are your folks ?” asked Benedict. 

“They’re away.” 

“Where?” 

I didn’t know whether to tell or not, but it 
seemed foolish not to, and I thought I’d be better 
off now if I just told how things were, for then 
maybe they might not do anything to me. 

“In England,” I answered. 

“England!” exclaimed Castle. “And you’re 
camping up here alone? Don’t lie.” 


130 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘‘Fm not/’ I answered. 

“Who’s with you at Little Fern Lake?” asked 
Benedict. 

“Some boys.” 

“Who else?” 

“Mr. Lally of St. Croix Academy,” I said. I 
thought maybe that would make him a little bit 
careful, for I could see now that maybe he’d think 
there wasn’t anybody there to take care of me. 
Perhaps he’d be more afraid to hurt me if he 
knew somebody’d be looking out for me. 

But he only grunted. Then he commenced his 
questions again. “What did you go to Frayne 
for?” 

“To see somebody.” 

“Who?” 

I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell about 
Flora. I didn’t know just how much he might 
know about her, and I just thought I needn’t tell. 
But the other man, who had commenced to tie 
the pony to a little tree, came over to me now, and 
leaning suddenly down he just put his hand in my 


Old Enemies 


131 

coat pocket, and I didn’t dare move then, but just 
had to stand and let him search me. And that’s 
what he did. 

He went through by outside pockets first, 
while Benedict held my arm, and he didn’t find 
anything, only a button-hook and a nickel and 
some salted peanuts I’d got that afternoon. Then 
he opened up my coat and looked in the inside 
pocket. 

I hadn’t thought about the letters I had there, 
but it was too late to think about them when he 
got his fingers on them, and in a second he had 
them out and was looking at them. 

'Witter Whitehead,’ ” he said, reading one 
address out loud. " 'Little Fern Hotel, Little 
Fern Lake.’ ” Then he pulled out the letter, and, 
say! but it seemed to me the worst thing that 
could have happened, for it was Flora’s last letter, 
and he and Benedict just read it together, standing 
there holding me, and scowling at it and making 
little exclamations that weren’t swearing, but 
pretty near it. And they read it all through, and 


132 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
then they just stood and looked at each other and 
at me. 

“You little runt, you!” said Benedict, after a 
while. “You’ve got us into a nice mess now, 
haven’t you?” 

But the other man, Castle, opened the other 
letter — the one from my Aunt Margaret — and 
read that. And when he finished he just handed 
it to Benedict. 

“Now, see here,” he said, taking hold of me. 
“You’ve got yourself into trouble, I can tell you 
that. For three cents I’d take you down and drop 
you into the river down here.” 

Benedict finished the letter and looked at me, 
too. “Or into the bottomless pool,” he added. 

They stood looking me over and over for quite 
a long minute. I didn’t think they really meant 
what they said, but while I looked from one of 
their faces to the other I felt pretty bad, for I 
could see that they were scared because the thing 
had happened the way it had, and I knew that 
they would be afraid to let me go now that we’d 


Old Enemies 


133 

raised such a fuss. Then, all at once, the short 
man took Benedict by the arm. 

‘Eet him stand alone a minute,” he said. “If 
he runs, we’ll catch him and put him into a rabbit 
hole, heels up. Let me talk to you.” 

Benedict looked doubtful for a second, but then 
he let go of my arm, and the two walked away 
from me a few feet. I didn’t dare to try to run 
then, for I knew they could catch me if I tried to 
get up the path, and there wasn’t any chance for 
me to get the pony loose and ride him away. So I 
had to stand still. And they stood close together 
between two bushes and began to talk quickly be- 
tween themselves so I couldn’t hear. 

That was an awfully hard time for me to stand. 
I couM have just dropped down on the leaves and 
cried mighty easy, for I was just about scared 
out of my life. I felt weak in my legs, and that 
choking feeling came to me again, with the tears 
just making my eyes hot. But I knew it wouldn’t 
do any good to be a baby, so I bit my teeth just 
as hard as I could, and just stood still and waited. 


134 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
And then, after they’d talked quite a few min- 
utes, the men turned around and came back to me, 
and Castle commenced to untie the pony, while 
Benedict took hold of my arm. And they were so 
quiet I could have just yelled with fear of them. 

^‘What are you going to do with me ?” I said. 
And then I tried, all at once, to jerk away again. 
But Benedict held me tight and answered me. 

‘‘You keep still,” he said, “and you won’t get 
hurt. You’re just going to visit your Aunt Mar- 
garet for a while. You’re going to start for the 
farm earlier than you thought, that’s all.” 

But he turned me around in the path, and next 
minute he gave me a push, and started me down 
through the woods. And I almost screamed out 
loud, as I suddenly thought that I knew where we 
were going. 



I TURNED AND THREW IT AS HARD AS I COULD RIGHT 
AT THE WINDOW.” [Page 31.] 










CHAPTER X 


THE BOTTOMLESS POOL 

The path was a good deal steeper than I had 
expected it would be, and I felt so sick I could 
hardly walk. I could just imagine that dark, cold 
hole in the rocks where the men had hidden the 
money, and I was sure they were going to take 
me there, because there couldn’t be any other place 
for them to take me. I did think that maybe they 
might go on down through to the river, but I 
couldn’t imagine what they could do with me 
there, for I didn’t believe they would dare hurt 
me. 

But the first guess I made was the right one. 
They went to the rocks. The path led down to 
the gully, pretty near direct, and when we got to 
135 


136 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
it I began to see what a very good place for hiding 
those rocks were. Nobody who was just going 
along the path, trying to get up from or down to 
the river, would ever think of turning off across 
the rocks on the rougher side of the gully the way 
Rick and I had gone when we tried to follow the 
hawk. It didn’t look as if there was, anything 
there at all except some big stones, with weeds 
and bushes and trees growing up all around. It 
was buried right in the heart of that rough, steep 
side hill, and I knew it was just about the best 
place that could be for a robber’s den. 

I hadn’t any doubt at all now that the men were 
robbers, and I knew they were afraid to let me go 
after I had recognized Benedict. So I commenced 
to wonder how they would dare to keep me. But 
it was only too easy to think that they could put 
me down in the big hole, and keep me there till 
they could get away. Nobody but Rick and Flora 
and I knew anything about the hole in the rocks. 
Flora wouldn’t know, of course, that I hadn’t 
gone straight home safely, but Rick would miss 


The Bottomless Pool 137 

me right away that night. He might think Fd de- 
cided to stay over one night at Frayne, however. 
Mr. Lally would be likely to make a fuss, though, 
and maybe he'd go and call up the Frayne Sani- 
tarium and ask about me. 

I knew Fd be missed pretty quick — ^by evening, 
anyway. But that didn’t do me much good, for 
nobody would guess where I was. Even Rick 
could never think I was a prisoner in the rocks, 
and Flora, though she might be more ready to 
suspect, would hardly think of that. And my 
heart got pretty heavy when I went into that 
guliy. 

Of course, the pony couldn’t climb down into 
the gully and across and up the rocks on the other 
side, so when we got opposite the place where the 
big hole was, Castle led the little fellow away into 
the woods, a short distance from the path, and 
tied him there. And then we all climbed down 
and through the gully, and got up on the flat rock 
where I had first seen the men. 

There’s no use telling how I felt. I was just 


138 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
about hopeless, and I was pretty near sure that Fd 
never get out of that place without something 
horrible happening to me. But they didn’t give 
me any time to think of things at all, but just 
hustled me over to the hole. When they got there 
they whistled a queer kind of whistle, like part 
of a tune, and then I found out that the third man 
must be down in the hole now, for an answering 
whistle came up quite plainly from the bottom. 

Castle leaned over and pulled up the rope out 
of the place where Rick had found it, and Bene- 
dict took hold of it and then let himself over the 
edge of the rocks, hanging on to the rope and 
finding places to put his feet. And down out of 
sight he went, lots easier than I supposed he could. 

Then, in a minute afterwards, Castle pulled the 

\ 

rope clear up, and taking hold of me, he put the 
end of it around under my arms and tied it, and 
then he told me to start climbing down the same 
way Benedict had gone. 

That deep, dark hole was a horrible sort of 
place. I don’t believe anybody but a thief or a 


The Bottomless Pool 139 

criminal trying to hide would ever think of climb- 
ing down into it It was getting so late in the day 
now that the sun was down behind the trees over 
the river way, and the darkness in the hole was 
almost black. You could still see the faint shine 
of the water at the bottom, but it was harder to 
know how far down it was. Still I had to try, so 
I took hold of the rope above where it was tied 
around me, and started. 

“You’ll find steps for your feet, if you try,” 
Castle said, holding on to the rope and letting 
it out slowly as I got down over the edge. 

But it felt to me as if there wasn’t any bottom 
under me at all, and as if I was going to fall, 
sure, all the time. And I had hard work to get 
down at all, till I found that I could get my feet 
into standing places as Castle said, by kicking 
around under me against the stones. And in a 
minute I discovered that they had cut steps in the 
rock, so that it wasn’t so hard as you might think. 

Well, I got down into the hole pretty far before 
I had any idea what I was going to find there. 


140 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
And then I was surprised. I guess it must have 
been twenty-five feet or maybe more from the top 
of the rocks down to the water, and it wasn't till 
I got down as much as sixteen or eighteen feet, 
which is more than three times as high as my 
head, that I found I was coming to an open space, 
because I couldn’t find any more place for my feet 
to step. And then, all at once, I felt somebody 
take hold of my legs, and next second I was being 
lowered down into the arms of a man, who was 
standing on some kind of a bank or platform or 
something, right at the edge of the water. And 
then I suddenly found that I had come to a cave 
or a sort of room that was dug in the earth at one 
side of the big hole, extending in between and 
under the rocks on that side, and that Benedict 
had hold of me, and that the other man of the 
three — the fat one — was there, too. 

Well, as soon as Benedict untied the rope from 
around me, and let me stand by myself, I looked 
around pretty quick. The ground I stood on was 
part sand and part earth, with the rock coming 


The Bottomless Pool 141 

to the surface in places and looking as if it had 
been chipped off to make a level floor. The whole 
room, in fact, seemed to be just cut out of the 
side of the rock wall, and I found out afterwards 
that it had been, though most of the cutting had 
been just digging out the earth. At one side was 
the water, which I knew, of course, was part of 
the brook flowing through the cave. On the other 
three sides were just the walls of the room. 

There was a lantern hanging in the room, and 
by its light I could see the men as they stood look- 
ing at me. The light was dim, and it didn’t show 
everything very well, but it showed that they 
were awfully serious as they vstood there and, 
when, after a minute, Castle came down the rope 
and was with them, they all just looked at each 
other, as if they wished I was anywhere in the 
world but there. I wished so, too, I guess, for 
when I looked around and saw that room and 
remembered that it couldn’t be seen at all from 
the top of the rocks, I thought it was just as good 
a prison as it was a hiding-place. 


142 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

Of course I hadn’t forgotten the cave that Rick 
and I had found, or that it had an opening into 
this hole, and one of the first glances I gave at 
the water-side of the place was to see if I could 
find where the opening under the rocks was 
through which the stream flowed. But I knew 
right away that I couldn’t tell then, for there were 
two or three overhanging rocks on the opposite 
side of the hole, and the stream might flow out 
from under any of them. I did feel a little bit of 
hope when I remembered that I knew something 
about the place that I believed the men didn’t 
know, or, at least, something they wouldn’t sus- 
pect I knew. But I felt so much afraid that my 
knowledge wouldn’t help me that I didn’t get 
much encouragement out of it. 

Well, after the men had looked at each other 
and at me for a minute or two, and Benedict had 
told the third man, whose name was Vilas, where 
and how I’d been caught, and who I was, Castle 
told me to go over and sit down on a box at one 
side of the cave and keep still while they talked. 


The Bottomless Pool 143 

‘‘And don’t you do anything foolish,” he said. 
“If you make a noise Til throw you into the water 
there, and it’s as cold as ice, and there’s no bottom 
at all to it.” 

I stared at him when he said that, and it made 
him think I didn’t believe him. 

“Here,” he said quick. “Come here,” and then 
he made me kneel down at the edge and put my 
hand into the water, to feel how cold it was, 
though I knew already, of course. And then he 
went to a corner of the cave, and took up a long 
pole that stood up inside the hole, high over our 
heads. And he plunged the pole down into the 
water, and down and down, at least fifteen feet, 
and he didn’t touch bottom. And then he rolled 
up his shirt sleeves and he pushed the pole down 
against the smooth side till the water came up to 
his elbow, and still the pole didn’t touch. 

“Now,” he said, “if you fall in there you will 
never get out, for nobody could swim in that water 
two minutes without getting cramps. So don’t 
you think for a second you can risk falling in 


144 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
there by trying to climb up the rocks. We’re 
going to keep you here, and you may as well make 
up your mind not to make a fuss. If you make 
a fuss I’ll cuff your head for you, anyway, and 
that’s all you’ll get by it.” 

Then he got up and set the pole up against the 
rocks again, and turned away from me, as if he 
knew he had settled me, all right. And he had, 
too, for that time, for the way he talked, and the 
thought of how awfully deep and cold that water 
was, made me too much afraid to think of trying 
to do anything but what they told me. And it 
did something else to me that they didn’t know 
about, too, and that was to take away any pros- 
pect that I could get out through the hole into the 
cave by wading or swimming across to it, after 
I’d found out just where it was. 

Well, I went and sat down on the box again at 
^one side of the cave, and began to look at what 
the men had in there, while they got together at 
the other end of the place to talk. There was a 
lot of things in the cave, and I was surprised. 


The Bottomless Pool 145 

There was a heavy table in the middle against the 
wall farthest from the water, and there were sev- 
eral rough boxes, and even one old wooden chair 
to sit on. Over at one side, too, there was a sort 
of fireplace, made of stones, and on this there was 
a fire burning, and I noticed as soon as I saw this 
that the room wasn’t nearly so cold as I had sup- 
posed any place in those rocks must be. And 
there were some queer-looking things on the table 
that I couldn’t understand at first — some tools and 
things like that. 

Of course I remembered about the bag of 
money I had seen the men lower into the place, 
and I looked around for that, for I was sure, I 
thought, that the cave must be for a hiding-place 
for stolen things. I saw a bag lying under the 
table, which seemed to have something in it, but 
I couldn’t believe they’d throw money down under 
there as carelessly as that. I looked around the 
walls for some kind of an opening that would 
show where they might stow away this stuff, but 
I couldn’t see any such place as that, either. 


146 The Cave of the Bottolmess Pool 

After I had looked around awhile, I began to 
try to listen to what the men said, but I couldn’t 
hear anything worth while for some time. At last, 
though, after they had talked for quite awhile, 
they all came together at the table, drawing up 
boxes to sit on. But Castle, before sitting down, 
went to the corner of the room near which the 
knotted rope hung, and suddenly commenced to 
pull a big, heavy, rough curtain across the whole 
opening towards the water. It ran on rings on a 
wire stretched in a sort of groove under the edge 
of the rocky roof, and when it was drawn it filled 
the whole side of the cave or room, tight, so that 
I was sure no light could ever be seen from the 
fire or the lantern if anybody should possibly look 
down into the hole at night. 

Then Benedict took down the hanging lantern, 
turned it up bright, and set it on the table, and 
then he came over to the table, too, and he took 
up a pen and some paper he had there. 

“Whose pony is that you had to-day?” he 
asked. 


The Bottomless Pool 147 

‘‘It belongs to the livery at Little Fern Hotel,” 
I answered. 

“What are the initials of this Mr. Lally you 
say is in your camp ?” he asked me then. 

I hesitated. He was evidently going to write 
to him or about him, and for a minute it occurred 
to me that, if I wouldn’t tell him, maybe I could 
make it harder for him some way to keep me pris- 
oner. But I knew it would be easy for him to get 
along without the initials if he had to, and so I 
told him right out. 

“G. F. Lally,” I said. 

I was wondering what he was going to write, 
but I was surprised again when he suddenly 
pushed the paper over to me and put the pen in 
my hand. 

“Write to him,” he said. “Date your letter 
from Frayne and write as I tell you.” 

I looked at him, startled, but he just nodded 
at me, scowling, meaning for me to begin without 
any fuss, and so I just had to. And this is what 
I wrote while he said the words : 


148 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

“Dear Mr. Lally : I found my Aunt Marga- 
ret here at Frayne, and she wants me to go back 
home with her now. I am sending this letter by 
the man who takes the pony home. Tell the boys 
good-by for me. 

“Yours truly, 

“Witter Whitehead/’ 

When I finished, Benedict took the pen and an- 
other piece of paper, and then he did a surprising 
thing. He laid my aunt’s letter on the table be- 
fore him, and he imitated her writing so cleverly 
that I don’t believe I could have told it wasn’t hers. 
And he wrote this letter : 

“Mr. G. F. Tally, 

“Dear Sir: I have decided to take Witter 
home with me, instead of letting him go back to 
camp. Fm alone at home now, and we’ll be com- 
pany for each other. 


“Margaret Whitehead.” 


CHAPTER XI 


CAVE DWELLERS 

Those two letters took almost every bit of hope 
out of me. They were so natural that I might 
have written mine and Aunt Margaret hers, and 
that was just what Mr. Tally would think. Rick 
would wonder, of course, that I should go away 
so, without any word to him, but he would think 
my aunt probably made me go, and that I would 
write to him later. Then, he wouldn't think it 
very wonderful if I didn't send him a letter for a 
week, at least, though he might think it was mean, 
after our adventure together and the plans we had 
made. 

Rick would know, of course, that I wouldn't 

give up finding out about the robbers' cave, and 
149 


150 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
he would believe that I would keep on writing to 
Captain Benson, and perhaps might come up to 
the Little Fern again, if the officers came. And 
I guessed he knew me well enough to know that 
I wouldn’t leave him out if anything interesting 
happened. But the only thing that would happen, 
when, day after day had gone by and he had not 
heard from me, would be that he would be mad at 
me. 

As for Flora, she wouldn’t expect to hear from 
me for a while, and she would only think that I 
was pretty careless if I didn’t write to her within 
a week or two. And neither Mr. Lally nor Aunt 
Margaret would suspect anything was wrong at 
all. 

I was heavy-hearted enough as I sat there, after 
the letters were done, but I listened to what was 
said. 

*‘Now,” said Benedict, folding up each letter, 
'^you address yours and Fll address Aunt Marga- 
ret’s.” And so we did that. How I wished I 
could put some mark on the envelope to show that 


Cave Dwellers 


151 

everything was not just as it seemed; but, of 
course, I couldn’t. 

''Castle, I guess you’d better take that pony 
back to Little Fern, and deliver these letters,” 
Benedict said. "It’s quite a ways to go to-night, 
but we can’t be too prompt.” 

"All right,” said Castle. "Will you come here 
in the morning?” 

"Yes. Vilas will have to stay all night to 
see to things and keep track of this kid. We’d 
better pull the rope up when we leave so that 
there’ll be no chance for the little fool to climb 
out.” 

He looked at me when he said that, and I knew 
I couldn’t possibly get away if they did as they 
said. 

"Do you want to work any to-night?” asked 
Vilas. 

"No,” Benedict answered. "I was tired enough 
when we started out before, and now we’ve lost 
another hour or more over this boy.” 

He scowled at me, and they all scowled, though, 


152 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
as I happened to look at the fat man, it seemed to 
me he didn’t really feel so bad about my being 
there as the others did. 

“Besides,” said Benedict, “I want to get rid of 
the balance of that first batch if we can.” 

He looked over the things on the table with a 
sort of disgusted expression, but in a minute after- 
wards he got up quickly. 

“Come on, Castle,” he said. “We’ll start.” 

So Castle took the letters and they both went 
to the knotted rope, and one after the other they 
climbed up, each just nodding good-night to Vilas. 
After they had got out of sight above us, I saw 
the rope being pulled up, too, and I wondered if 
that didn’t make Vilas a prisoner as well as me. 
When I turned to look at him he was grinning at 
me. 

“You don’t like this much?” he asked. 

“Of course not,” I said. “Do you like to stay 
here all night?” 

“I’ll like it better now you’re here, if you won’t 
act the baby.” 


Cave Dwellers 153 

I stared at him. His voice sounded pretty good- 
natured, and his fat face was smiling broader than 
ever. 

“I haven't been a baby yet, have I?" I asked. 

‘‘No," he said, and his face sobered a little. 
“So you're the kid that got Morse caught, are 
you ?" he asked in a moment. 

“I found the house where he lived, accident- 
ally," I answered. 

“And told the police?" 

“Yes." 

“I s'pose Morse has got it in for you just as 
he has for Benedict," Vilas said. 

“I don't know," I answered. “Maybe he hasn't 
got it in for Benedict." 

“You bet he has. If he ever gets his hands on 
him he'll leave a mark on the old man." 

“Did he really* catch Benedict in his rooms in 
the city?" 

“Oh, you read about that, did you? No — ^he 
hasn't seen Benedict, and won't see him. It's 
half for fear of Morse that Benedict's up here." 


154 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

“Whaf s the other half ?” I asked. 

Vilas stopped talking suddenly. Then he 
laughed. ‘T guess you’ll know, if you stay here,” 
he answered. ‘‘And I guess you’re going to 
stay.” 

“How long?” I asked, for he talked so easy he 
encouraged me. 

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Till you’re gray- 
headed, for all I know.” 

“My friends will find me,” I said, sort of 
boldly. 

“Think so?” he asked. 

“Yes,” I said. 

‘ ‘Well,” he answered. “They might, but the 
moon might fall, too.” 

“You mean there isn’t any chance?” 

“There’s about as much chance of your friends 
finding you here as there is of your finding the 
end of the equator by walking around the earth.” 

I sat and looked at him, hopeless, for I knew it 
seemed about so. In my heart I knew I was just 
thinking that there was a chance Rick might start 


Cave Dwellers 155 

something to help me. But that didn’t seem likely, 
and nothing else seemed even possible. How I 
wished then that I had come right out and told 
somebody all about this place. How I wished I 
had told Mr. Lally, or — yes, that negro, who I 
believed to be a detective. If he knew it, there 
wouldn’t be much time lost in waiting. 

Then I remembered my letter and Flora’s to 
Captain Benson, and I thought, maybe, when 
Captain Benson learned all I had to tell, he would 
perhaps come up from the city to see me, and then 
I would be missed, and then they would hunt for 
me, and somebody would suspect where I was. 
But suppose Captain Benson should only write 
again, instead of coming. A letter to the camp 
at Little Fern would be forwarded to Aunt Mar- 
garet’s, and she would simply think that meant I 
was coming soon, and she might keep the letter 
a week or two before she would think it very 
strange I hadn’t come. I couldn’t really see a 
single way for any hope. 

But the fat man, Vilas, was laughing again, as 
he looked at me, and pretty soon he spoke. 


156 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘‘Are you hungry?” he asked. 

I didn’t think I was, very, but I knew it was 
long past supper-time then, and when I thought 
about it, I knew that I’d feel a little better prob- 
ably if I could get something to eat, so I said 
yes. 

He got up from the box he was sitting on right 
away. 

“So am I,” he said, and he went to a box at the 
other end of the room and opened it. 

“Will you have beefsteak or tea?” he asked me 
over his shoulder. 

I laughed at that. It sounded so funny, even 
there in that place, and I was just getting to feel 
quiet enough so that I felt sort of weak inside, and 
could laugh or cry either, pretty easy. And be- 
cause he wanted to joke, it made me feel more en- 
couraged and hopeful in a second. 

I didn’t answer, for I didn’t believe he meant 
it at all. And then, in a minute, he took some 
things out of the box and came over to the table. 
He looked down at me again with his face all full 


Cave Dwellers 


157 

of fun, and then he stood on one foot and put one 
hand on his hip, with the other holding a board 
like a tray on his fingers, with the things to eat 
on it. 

‘‘R-r-roast beef, stewed beef, beef extract, ham 
and, chicken giblets or hash? Huckleberry, blue- 
berry, or mud pie ? What’s the order, sir ?” 

I laughed again, but didn’t answer. He set 
down his board just as if I’d ordered. 

“Ham and, eh?” he said, and he put a little 
wooden dish before me with cold Frankfurts in 
it. “And huckleberry pie,” he added, putting out 
a big piece of cheese. And then he set some 
bread beside that and called it a “pate de foie 
gras.” And in a minute he went to a place at the 
edge of the water, at the other end from the rope, 
and came back with a paper bucket with butter 
in it. 

He laughed, too, as he pulled up a box and sat 
down. “Let’s eat,” he said. “This provender 
isn’t the best ever, but we’ll have better to-morrow 
or we’ll both go on a strike. We’ve only just 


158 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
moved in here, you know. This is a sort of house- 
warming you’ve come to.” 

The way he talked made me feel like making 
the best of it, for it seemed to me that anybody 
who was so full of fun couldn’t be very mean, or 
wouldn’t do anything very bad to a boy. And 
then, just seeing those things to eat, which looked 
clean and good, even if it was a funny combina- 
tion, made me hungry. In a minute, then, I did 
commence to eat, and I ate and ate. 

Vilas went on talking while we had supper, and 
he ate a great deal more than I did. But he told 
me some interesting things. 

*‘No,” he said, suddenly going back to a ques- 
tion I’d asked him earlier — “No, Morse hasn’t 
caught Benedict 3^et. Benedict just made a wreck 
of his rooms in the city to fool the police, because 
we’d found this place up here where we could 
work this new game. I guess he’d have come, 
anyway, if there wasn’t any game to work, be- 
cause he doesn’t sleep easy of nights so long as 
Morse is loose.” 


Cave Dwellers 159 

Morse around here anywhere?’’ I asked. 

Vilas stopped eating suddenly. “Heavens, no ! 
I hope not !” 

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he said, right out. “So is anybody else 
that knows him.” 

“What’ll he do to Benedict?” 

“Well, he prob’ly won’t find him, for this is a 
hard place to find.” 

“Did you know him in the city?” I asked. 

“Don’t ask me any questions like that, young 
man,’ he said, grinning. “I know him, that’s 
enough.” 

“Won’t he keep after Benedict till he gets him, 
then?” I asked. 

“Yes, or till the officers get Morse — as they will 
after a while.” 

“But won’t his friends help him ?” 

“Whose friends?” 

“Morse’s.” 

“Morse’s friends ? Bless you, he hasn’t got any. 
There’s nobody that all the gang hates and is as 
afraid of as that fellow.” 


i6o The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

He meant what he said, for he looked solemn, 
in spite of the fact that his face was all shiny in 
the lantern light, and he kept on eating cheese 
and ‘‘weenies,” as he called the Frankfurts. 

Well, then he went on to tell me some more 
things about what had happened in the days before 
this time, and he told me quite a lot that showed 
he had known all these men quite a while, and 
that they had all done things they might be sent 
to prison for. But he was so cool about it and 
made so many jokes and seemed so comfortable 
after his supper and all, that it seemed as if he 
couldn’t really have had any part in the things he 
told about. It was just like listening to anybody 
tell stories. 

I almost forgot that I had to stay there in that 
place all that night, and nobody could know how 
much longer, and that I was really in as much 
danger as I could be very well. And finally I 
found myself getting sleepy, just as if I was at 
home in camp listening to Mr. Lally’s stories. 

“Guess you better turn in,” Vilas said, when he 


Cave Dwellers i6i 

saw my eyes nearly close; and he got up and 
pulled some blankets and things out of a corner 
and fixed two, all folded up, for me to lie down 
on, with a part of one to put over me. And I 
thought I could sleep, too, for I was tired, I can 
tell you. 

So we got a drink of water from the spring 
Vilas showed me right at the edge of the pool, 
which he told me was only one of those that had 
made it; and then he fixed his bed the same as 
mine. When I lay down he put out the lantern 
and then pulled the curtain one side a little so 
that we’d have some fresh air. And then, in a 
minute, I thought it was, I heard him snoring on 
his blankets. 

After I lay down, though, for some reason I 
wasn’t sleepy any more at all. It seemed to me 
that I was never more wide awake. I lay looking 
up into the darkness to the place where I knew* 
the opening in the curtain was, and trying to see 
whether I could really tell any difference between 
the faint light from the low fire, which was only 
coals now, and the outside darkness. 


1 62 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

Vilas snored and snored, and the fire just 
burned lower and lower, brightening once in a 
while a little and showing everything in the cave 
with a sort of yellow light, and then sinking down 
till I could hardly see anything at all. And all 
the time I gradually got more and more excited, 
and farther and farther away from sleeping, be- 
cause I was realizing what a place I was in and 
what terrible danger it was. And I knew it was 
just because I had been foolish that I had got 
there at all, and I think I honestly felt worse over 
that than over the rest. 

But it seemed to me that I had to find out what 
these men were doing here, if I could, and then 
try to find a way to get out of the hole, if possible, 
and I thought and thought about that so fast and 
hard that I was just like you are when you have 
a fever. You see things so vividly, and you get 
so stirred up about what you are imagining. And, 
at the last, I just knew I couldn't lie still there 
any longer. 

I sat up. Vilas was still snoring away, not very 


Cave Dwellers 163 

loud, but enough so it was easy to know he was 
asleep. I got up on my feet, just feeling that I 
must do something then. And when Vilas still 
slept on, I walked softly over to the table, got a 
match from a little box I had seen there while we 
were eating; and then I struck it carefully and 
looked all around at the things there. They didn’t 
look like much to me, but I knew that I ought to 
be able to tell from these tools what these men 
were doing, or what the game was, as Vilas 
called it. 

Of course the match went out in a minute, and 
I had to strike another, but I could hear Vilas 
breathing all the time, and I wasn’t afraid. And 
so I made another light. On the table near the 
back I had seen a sort of box-like thing with an 
iron handle that I had been curious about earlier, 
and it was that I wanted most to look at. So, 
when the second match flared up, I reached over 
and took hold of the iron handle, and a kind of 
lid came up easily. I stood looking sort of stu- 
pidly inside for a minute, at two plates like print- 


164 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
ers’ cuts, which lay there side by side. And then, 
all at once, I understood what they were, for it 
was as plain as could be. Each was part of an 
engraved plate of a two-dollar bill, and as I 
looked, the word that described what this gang 
was doing and why they were hiding, jumped into 
my mind in a flash. 

‘‘Counterfeiters !” 

I stood still and stared and stared, and forgot 
the match till it burned my fingers, and I had to 
let it drop. And then I struck another. But, as 
I struck the third one, I suddenly thought to listen 
for Vilas’ snoring, and I couldn’t hear it. I 
turned, in a fright, to look at him, holding the 
match high and stooping over to see him, and 
there he lay, with his eyes wide open, looking at 
me as quietly as he had looked at supper. 


CHAPTER XII 


A NIGHT AWAKE 

I STOOD perfectly still. I don't believe I had 
been so very much afraid to do what I had been 
doing, before I turned and saw Vilas' eyes open. 
But when I saw them looking at me so quietly, 
just as if he hadn't been asleep at all, and had 
known from the first that I was up and moving 
around, I just felt about as you might if you 
thought you were seeing a ghost. 

But the strangest part of it was that, after I 
turned and was looking back at him, he never 
moved. The light of the match showed on his 
face, which seemed to be just wet with perspira- 
tion, and it made little bright points of glitter in 

his eyes, too, just as if they were glass, and I 
165 


1 66 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
could see them change as the flame of the match 
flared up and then burned lower. But he lay per- 
fectly still. I couldn’t even see him breathe. 

It was ever so much worse, after just the 
first second, to have him lie still and stare at me 
that way, than if he had sat up quick and acted 
mad. I couldn’t dream what he was thinking or 
what he would do, and everything was so horribly 
still, and I felt so sort of weak for fear of what he 
might try to do to me that I was just about ready 
to sink down on the ground. 

The match I was holding burned slowly, and I 
just stood holding it till the flame grew small and 
then suddenly went out. And all the time the 
man never changed at all. But just as the flame 
made its last little flicker, my heart jumped be- 
cause I thought I saw all at once that his eyes were 
closing again. I couldn’t tell sure, for it was too 
dark to see, after my light was out, and I didn’t 
know but maybe just the sinking of the match- 
flame had made it seem to happen. 

I didn’t dare to move, but stood where I was. 


A Night Awake 167 

holding my breath and waiting. I expected to 
see Vilas stir and begin to get up, or to hear him 
speak out to me, any second. The only light in 
the cave now came from the fire, which was al- 
most dead, and his big, fat figure, half covered by 
the blanket, looked like a black shadow. I hung 
on to the edge of the table, against which I was 
standing, and looked for the first move. Two or 
three times I thought I saw him beginning to 
draw up his feet, which were towards the fire. 
Then I thought I saw him commencing to push 
the blanket away from his face and turning ready 
to make some move. And then, all at once, in the 
darkness, I heard him begin to snore again. 

I couldn’t hardly believe it, for I had been so 
sure he was awake and watching me that I 
couldn’t understand how it was possible. I 
thought he must be playing me a trick, though 
why he should do that I couldn’t see, either. But 
his breathing was as even as if he hadn’t been dis- 
turbed at all, and grew slowly heavier and heavier, 
till I began to believe maybe he hadn’t waked up 


i68 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
at all when he had been looking at me. I had 
never seen anybody open his eyes in his sleep then, 
but I have since. Rick does it sometimes, and 
Tve seen other people do it. And they don’t really 
see you at all, I’ve found out, though they seem 
to be looking at you. They are half awake, per- 
haps, but not quite, and so they don’t know what 
you are doing, and don’t remember afterwards. 
But I couldn’t think how it could be so, then, and 
so I expected, as much as could be, to have him 
stop snoring pretty quick and show me that he 
hadn’t been asleep at all. 

But he kept on and on and on, not changing, 
and so natural that I couldn’t believe he was 
shamming; and after I had stood still till my 
wrists began to get stiff from resting my hands on 
the table, I sort of became sure at la'st that he 
hadn’t been disturbed at all. 

A little ashes fell in the fire, while I was think- 
ing these things, and the light in the cave got so 
dim that I really couldn’t tell that Vilas was there 
at all if he hadn’t kept on breathing so hard. And 


A Night Awake 169 

when I heard the little sounds that the coals made 
in sinking down, it seemed to just make me feel 
that I was safe. But the way I had been scared 
by that surprise made me sure that I didn^t want 
to try any more looking around then. So, when 
I made up my mind I could move safely, I just 
crept across the floor to my blankets and lay down 
on them again quick, and pulled the cover over 
me. 

Well, it didn’t make me any more ready to 
sleep then than I had been before, to have found 
out the things I had learned. I’d heard about 
counterfeiters, and I knew that they were sup- 
posed to be just as bad as burglars, or maybe 
worse/ I knew that men who made imitations of 
money, or who tried to pass it for good money, 
could be sent to prison, and that sometimes the 
very worst kind of men were the ones who did it. 
The officers of the government secret service were 
always looking for them, and they were always 
ready to do about anything to cover up where they 
were. And when I thought of all the things I’d 


lyo The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
heard about such men, I didn't feel any happier 
to know that Benedict was one of them, and that 
I was in their cave. 

I lay there in the darkness thinking about it 
and getting so hot all over that I couldn’t bear 
the blanket over me, and so frightened and miser- 
able that there wasn’t any chance for me to go to 
sleep. And I tried and tried to think of some 
plan for getting away, though I don’t believe that 
what I thought then was very good sense, for 
when I remembered it afterwards, I wondered 
how it had seemed possible that I could do any of 
the things I had thought of. 

But while I lay there, looking up at the roof 
of the cage, which I couldn’t see now on account 
of the dark, suddenly I heard a sharp little splash 
in the water of the pool, out beyond the curtain, 
as if a single stone had dropped from above some- 
where and struck the water. 

It wasn’t a big splash, but it was one you 
couldn’t make any mistake about, and it was so 
near that it seemed to be almost beside my head. 


A Night Awake 171 

Of course, I was holding my breath in a second, 
and thinking of ever so many things at once. You 
wouldn't think, maybe, that just the dropping of 
one stone into the pool would be anything to think 
about particularly, but the second I heard it, 
somehow I remembered that all the sides of the 
pool were of big solid rocks, and that no small 
stones could drop in very easily, unless they were 
pushed over the edge above or something like 
that. I mean that there weren't any stones around 
on the inside of the hole, just stuck into dirt so 
that they might gradually get loose and fall, just 
by themselves, at night. 

The sound was the only thing I heard for a 
minute, and then came a gentle little lapping of 
the water on the rock just outside, and I knew 
that was the ripples the splash had made. But 
they had only just started making a sound I could 
hear, when another splash came, this time quite a 
little larger and louder, and so close that I heard 
the drops from it hit against the curtain right be- 
side me. 


172 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

Well, I didn’t know what to think about that. 
Of course, almost anything really could have 
made the stones fall. An animal might be climb- 
ing around up above over our heads, digging or 
hunting for food, though it wouldn’t seem as if 
any animal would knock just one stone over the 
edge, twice, like that. Someway, even at the first, 
I thought right away of the time when I first 
looked down into the hole, and threw a stone over 
the edge to see if I could tell how deep the place 
was. And the idea of somebody else up there do- 
ing the same thing got into my head and made me 
more excited than before. 

After the second splash, though, while the rip- 
ples were slapping against the stones again, I 
suddenly heard another sound that startled me 
more, and that was the distinct snapping of 
leaves as something forced its way through the 
brush right at the edge of the big hole. 

Then some funny thoughts come to me. First 
I had the idea that I ought to wake Vilas up to 
listen, too. That I thought of, just as I would 


A Night Awake 173 

have thought of waking up Mr. Lally if I heard 
anyone prowling around our camp at Little Fern. 
Then I remembered, all at once, that if anybody 
was out there hunting around, if they weren’t 
friends of Vilas and his gang, I didn’t have to 
care, because any enemies at all of the counterfeit- 
ers must be friends of mine. And from that I 
jumped all at once to the notion that maybe it 
was some friends of mine who had got anxious 
and had found out from Rick about this place, and 
had come right here to look around. Of course, 
they might think I had come here to look again at 
the cave and that I had fallen into the pool. Still, 
if Rick had told them all about the place, I was 
sure they wouldn’t come around, sneaking 
through the bushes and dropping stones down in, 
in the dead of night, without lights. 

Well, the noise was so plain, and I kept hear- 
ing it so steady every little while, somebody or 
something brushing around in the bushes and 
leaves, that I couldn’t stand it to lie still at last. 
So I sat up again. I looked over to where Vilas 


174 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
was lying, but I couldn’t see a thing now, be- 
cause it was pitch-black in the cave. I couldn’t 
hear him breathe now, but everything was per- 
fectly still in the room, so I thought he couldn’t 
be moving. 

I waited a minute or two, and then, as the 
bushes still scraped and rustled, I crept on my 
hands and knees across the floor and over to the 
place where the curtain was open. I was mighty 
careful, you can believe, for I didn’t want to 
crawl out through the opening in the curtain and 
fall into that icy water outside. I reached around 
in the dark, trying to get hold of the curtain, 
and then felt along over to the sandy floor, search- 
ing for the edge of it. And I got a little con- 
fused, too, before I found where both were, be- 
cause I crawled so slowly it seemed to take me an 
awfully long while to get anywhere, and I seemed 
to be lost or going in a wrong direction, and I 
got that horrible feeling you get in the dark 
sometimes of not being very sure that you really 
know just where you are, or that you remember 
how things are shaped around you. 


A Night Awake 175 

But I touched the curtain after a few seconds, 
and then easily felt along that to the open place; 
and then, with my hands on the rock edge, I bent 
down and turned my head to look up as high as 
I could toward the top of the hole. I couldn’t see 
anything, though, for it was just as dark outside. 
I couldn’t even see any light on the water or the 
rocks across the pool. But I could hear, plainer 
than ever, the movements up above, for the walls 
of the hole seemed to bring the sounds down to 
me just the way you can hear sounds down an 
elevator shaft, when you are standing waiting for 
a car to take you up. 

But I hadn’t much more than got there, and 
was bending to listen, when I felt the curtain move 
against me, and the next second something 
touched me from behind, and then all at once I 
was grabbed back away from the edge, and a big, 
fat hand, that was all covered with sand, too, 
clapped over my mouth, and Vilas was holding 
me and whispering in my ear. 

“If you make a sound I’ll choke you !” he said. 


176 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
and I felt his breath hot in my hair and on my 
neck. ‘‘You lie down here on your blankets and 
keep still. Til find out what’s doing up above.” 

Well, he’d heard the noise, too, of course, and 
after holding me a while, he took his hand off my 
mouth and pushed me towards my blankets. I 
didn’t dare do anything but what he told me, 
either, so I just crawled to my bed and rolled over 
on it and waited, rubbing the sand off my mouth. 
I didn’t know what he was meaning to do, and I 
was about as interested as anybody could be, but I 
had to wait and be still. 

I couldn’t tell what was happening, and I 
waited in the stillness, and tried to see when I 
knew it wasn’t possible to see. And then all at 
once I heard a sound that I did understand. It 
was a faint scrape of the rings of the curtain on 
the wire that supported it. Vilas was opening the 
curtain, I thought. Then it was all still again. 

But the noise up above had stopped now, and 
the stillness was so perfect that I could hear my 
clothes move when I breathed. I tried not to 


A Night Awake 177 

breathe two or three times, as long as I could 
stand it, so as to listen and know what Vilas was 
doing. But he didn’t seem to be stirring at all, 
and there I sat waiting and waiting so long that 
I was sure it must be getting along towards morn- 
ing. 

And then all at once there was a sudden furious 
scuffling and scrambling among the bushes out- 
side, and stones and dirt and leaves and twigs 
all commenced to come down at once together 
into the water, and suddenly a wild screaming, or 
rather a regular squealing kind of noise, just 
seemed to fill the whole hole full, and down came 
a big, heavy body, with a roaring splash, in the 
middle of the pool. 

The water went all over everything in our cave 
— all over me and all over the blankets, and all 
around in big drops, as if a wave had broken on 
us, and it struck in my face and on my hands, cold 
as could be. And I was so scared that I guess I 
hollered right out, for it seemed afterwards that 
I must have. I sort of remembered it. 


178 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
For a second it was still again, after the fall 
of the big thing, except for the slop of the water. 
Then suddenly there was a splashing out in the 
middle, a snort, and then a quick, hurried kind of 
beating of water, and I could hear hard, quick, 
panting breathing, sounding just as it would in- 
side a barrel or something like that. And I knew 
that whatever or whoever had fallen into the big 
hole was alive, at least. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE DOG THAT DISAPPEARED 

I GUESS I thought all my waiting and keeping 
still was at an end when that big splash came. I 
rolled over the blankets to get away from the 
water, and also to get away from the edge of the 
pool, for I was afraid that, next thing I knew, 
somebody would be climbing up into the cave and 
right on to me. 

I heard Vilas, too, jumping back from the edge 
and then running across the room quick, and I 
heard him go bang into the table against the back 
wall. But next second he was whispering to him- 
self, and that made me keep still again and wait, 
for I could hear him plainly. 

“IPs a dog!’’ he whispered, sort of breathless. 


179 


i8o The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
“Where’s — where’s that gun!” And he went 
fumbling over towards the corner near the head of 
his own bed, exclaiming to himself and hurrying, 
yet really pretty quiet, too. 

And all the while the panting and splashing 
sounded in the pool, and when I stopped to listen 
to it once more I was sure he was right, too — it 
was a dog. As soon as I thought that, then I re- 
membered the squealing I’d heard when he fell, 
and I was certain that it had been a dog’s fright- 
ened yelp, though I hadn’t known it for that when 
I first heard it, hollow and echoing in the rocks. 
And I drew a long breath of relief, too, for even 
if I was in a bad place and afraid of the men who 
had me there, I was more afraid to think there 
might be a man out there in the dark whom I 
knew nothing about, and who was going to at- 
tack us. 

But the dog was swimming around in the pool, 
and he blew the water out of his nose again in a 
minute, with the same kind of snort I’d heard the 
first time, and, in just a minute, he commenced to 


The Dog that Disappeared i8i 
whine and moan, as if he was scared or hurt or 
something, as probably the poor fellow was. And 
then all of a sudden he stopped moaning and 
splashing at the same time, and was still for a 
second, and then he seemed to be turning or twist- 
ing or rising up in the water, or something like 
that, different from swimming, for the sound 
made me think of that. And all at once he stopped 
moving altogether in the water and was still. 

Well, I couldn’t understand that, for I was sure 
he hadn’t come over to our side of the pool, and 
that he couldn’t be out on any other rocks around 
the inside, for I didn’t believe there was one that 
would hold him. Besides, a dog that climbs out 
of the water almost always shakes himself the 
very first thing, and I hadn’t heard any such noise 
as that. But in a second I heard Vilas again. 

^‘By George! He’s sunk!” he said half out 
loud. “The cold’s got the best of him!” And 
then I heard the man go forward across the cave 
to the edge and stop there, and then we both lis- 
tened and listened, and we couldn’t hear a thing 


182 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
but the sound of the little waves again and the 
drip of the water from the splashed rocks. And 
I thought that what Vilas said was true, and that, 
sudden as it was, the dog must have sunk. 

It made me shudder, too, I can tell you, for I 
had thought that night, while I was lying awake 
alone so long, that maybe it might be possible for 
me to bear the cold of the water long enough on 
my body to swim across the pool to the opening 
into the cave Rick and I had found, and to get 
away that way. But I knew in an instant that if 
a dog couldn’t stand it, a boy surely couldn’t. But 
Vilas spoke again pretty soon, and this time it was 
to me, and in a low tone. 

‘‘Where are you, kid ?” he asked. 

“Here,” I whispered. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Keeping still.” 

He was quiet a second, and then he turned back 
into the cave, and in a minute he came over be- 
side me. 

“That was a dog,” he said, as if he thought I 
couldn’t tell. 


The Dog that Disappeared 183 

‘‘Yes/’ I said. 

“And he’s drowned,” he added. 

“Is he?” I asked. “How do you know?” 

“The pool is ice-cold,” he said. “Castle made 
you put your hand into it, you know.” 

“Yes,” I said. “I know.” 

“And it hasn’t any bottom. Benedict says that 
it has a subterranean outlet somewhere, deep 
down, and that’s the way Mr. Dog has gone. 
That’s the way anybody’ll go that falls down in 
there.” 

I thought probably that was true. But it made 
me think of the opening into the cave over oppo- 
site us, and all at once I wondered if possibly the 
dog might not have just chanced to find that place, 
and if, perhaps, he hadn’t climbed up into the 
cave, and if he wasn’t in there now — or maybe on 
his way out, if he could find his way out. But I 
didn’t say anything about that, you may be pretty 
sure. 

Vilas was quiet for several minutes after we 
stopped hearing the dog, and I didn’t know 


184 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

whether he was listening or what he was doing, so 
I waited and was still, too. After a while, though, 
Vilas whispered to me again. 

‘'It's very queer,” he said. “I don't see how 
that could have happened. I don't believe dogs 
run around alone much in the woods at night. If 
he was with a man, though, it wouldn't be likely 
he'd fall in here.'' 

I didn't know, so I didn't answer. 

“I haven't heard anything more since he sank, 
though,'' he went on. “If anybody was up there 
in the bushes he's gone away, I guess.'' 

“Couldn't we hear him go away, if anybody 
had been there with the dog?'' I asked. 

“Yes, probably,'' he answered. “I wish Bene- 
dict had left the rope down. I ought to go up and 
look around. Now we'll have to wait till morn- 
ing.'' 

“Isn't it morning now?” 

“Well, it's pretty early.” 

He stopped for a minute, and we both stood 
there thinking ; then he went on. 


The Dog that Disappeared 185 

there’d been anybody with that dog who 
knew about the hole here, he never would have 
let the dog fall in. If he didn’t know about the 
hole, he would have come to look for his dog, and 
we would have heard him. I don’t believe any- 
body was there. The dog was probably chasing 
some little animal around and got too near the 
edge. He drowned quick, didn’t he?” 

“Yes,” I said, shivering again, and thinking 
what a horrible thing it would have been if I had 
tried to swim the pool. 

“Well,” said Vilas, “we better turn in again 
now and get some sleep.” 

He moved away from me, and I heard him go 
over to the corner again, and then I understood 
that he had had the gun and was putting it away 
again. In a minute he was over at his blankets 
again and lying down. 

“Are you getting back to bed there, young- 
ster ?” he whispered across to me. And I started 
quick and whispered back that I was. 

He hadn’t drawn the curtain, and the air was 


1 86 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
pretty cool now, but it had been warm in the cave 
and the blanket was enough over me. I lay down 
and began to think again. I was not sleepy at all, 
but felt as if I wanted to yawn all the time, and 
my body felt so sort of tired all through each 
muscle as I lay there that I just stretched and 
stretched and turned over and then back again. 

I was pretty confident now that Vilas hadn’t 
seen me when I had thought he was looking at 
me in his sleep in the early part of the night. I 
was pretty sure he would have said something 
about it if he had, though I’d forgotten it, too, 
while we were so startled about the dog. I was 
mighty glad if he hadn’t. 

But I didn’t feel the same way about the dog 
and the rustling we had heard in the bushes, and 
I wasn’t satisfied with the way he had thought it 
out. It might be so that a man prowling around 
up there wouldn’t let his dog fall in, or would 
try to get him out when he did fall in, and all 
that. But dogs don’t throw stones down into 
holes. Of course, Vilas probably hadn’t heard 


The Dog that Disappeared 187 
the stones fall, as I had, and so he couldn’t figure 
on them. But it seemed to me he was pretty 
easily satisfied. 

I lay and thought and thought about it. Vilas 
was snoring again pretty soon; but I couldn’t 
even shut my eyes, except to wink, and oh, I felt 
awfully lonesome and bad, I tell you! And I 
kept going over and over all the things that had 
happened, and thinking them out and thinking 
them out, worrying about what Rick and Flora 
and Mr. Lally and Captain Benson would do, and, 
really, I found out that I was actually disappointed 
because the disturbance we had had was made by 
just a poor dog that had probably been drowned. 

It isn’t any use to write out all the things I 
thought about, or how miserable I felt, but I 
didn’t go to sleep at all. I just lay there and 
heard the wind blow softly in the bushes up at 
the top of the hole, and felt thrills go through me 
e\^ery time there was a sound. And I saw the 
daylight when it began to grow gray in the big 
hole, with the surface of the pool turning slowly 


1 88 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
light first and then the black rocks themselves, 
looking as if some kind of filmy veil was on them 
and was being slowly drawn in out of sight, right 
through them, till they came out clear and cold 
and dry. 

I looked over the pool carefully while I lay 
there, but couldn’t see any more than I had the 
night before. And I was getting so shivery and 
sort of sick at my stomach from lying awake all 
night that I was glad, I tell you, when Vilas sud- 
denly stopped breathing hard and sat up. And 
then I had a queer feeling come over me, for I 
began to feel that I hadn’t really realized that I 
was In such a very strange place, or in such a 
dangerous trouble till then. I felt as if I had 
been believing all the time that I was having only 
a bad dream, from which I would wake up soon. 
And now I seemed to have waked up to find it 
all come true. I can tell you I thought about my 
father and mother away off in England, and about 
how they’d feel if they knew all the trouble I was 
in, and I was pretty near eying about it, when 


The Dog that Disappeared 189 

Vilas got up and came over to look down at me. 
Then I couldn't cry, of course, for I wouldn’t let 
him see me be a baby. 

Well, Vilas started a fire and I got up. Of 
course we had laid down in our clothes all night, 
and so I was all dressed. But I felt sort of un- 
comfortable in them — kind of prickly all over and 
disagreeable. I’d never had my clothes on all 
night like that before, except the one time when I 
slept under the bed in the house of the silver 
thieves. And I’d never laid awake all through a 
night before at all. But when Vilas made some 
coffee and gave me a cup with some good bread 
and butter, I commenced to feel better pretty 
quick, and I ate and drank and almost felt rested 
for a while. 

We talked, of course, but it was mostly about 
the strange fall of the dog into the pool and all 
that, and we looked all around at the rocks and 
up as high as we could see, to try to discover some 
sign that would tell us something. We couldn’t 
see the top of the hole from the cave, though, so 
we couldn’t hope to find out very much. 


190 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

It seemed a long time before Castle and Bene- 
dict came. Vilas told me they would be there 
early, and I guess it was only about half-past 
seven or something like that when they did come. 
But we heard the whistle they used as a signal at 
last, and Vilas answered; and then, after a min- 
ute, the rope came down quick, whipping around 
like a snake, and then first Castle and then Bene- 
dict climbed down and in. 

But they seemed to be very much worried about 
something, right at the start, and to be pretty 
ugly, too, though they didn^t pay any attention to 
me, hardly, so that I knew it wasn’t all about me. 
But they talked together in low tones, and I heard 
quite a little of what they said, though I kept 
away from them. 

Vilas told them about the dog falling into the 
pool in the night, and they were a good deal in- 
terested, of course ; but I knew all about that, and 
so didn’t care so much what they said. But pretty 
soon I heard Benedict say something that made 
me listen close. 


The Dog that Disappeared 191 

‘‘Somebody's got wise to one of our bills," were 
the words I caught, and afterwards I heard 
enough to make out that he was all stirred up and 
scared because one of the counterfeits they had 
made had been refused over at Frayne and had 
made some talk. 

“It's pretty queer," was one of the things he 
said. “I don't understand it. One of us must 
have paid out one of those two-dollar bills with- 
out knowing it, and somebody was smooth enough 
to spot it." 

“They can't trace it, of course," Castle said, 
“but somehow a rumor has got around that there's 
more of the bills in circulation around here, and 
everybody seems afraid to touch a two-spot." 

“Do you think we'll have to quit the game, 
then?" Vilas asked them. 

“No — quit nothing!" Benedict answered, an- 
gry. “But it means that Castle or I will have to 
go down to the city to float the stuff. We'll have 
to lie low up here." 

“Well, it might be worse, then," Vilas an- 
swered, as if he didn't care much. 


192 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
“Yes,” Castle answered; “but it means that 
we’ve got to be more careful than we think. 
We’re skating where it’s awful thin right now.” 

Of course I was interested in this. They were 
having troubles over their bad money already, 
and that made me wonder how they could keep 
doing things that weren’t honest, like that, because 
it made just such trouble for them every time. 

But, as I sat there listening and thinking, all 
at once something came into my mind that hadn’t 
occurred to me at all before, and I was suddenly 
just full of wonder about it. On the morning 
before, when I was riding to Frayne, and when I 
stopped at the little country store to water the 
pony, the negro who I thought was a detective 
had come up to me and asked me to change a bill. 
That bill had been a two-dollar note, and the min- 
ute I remembered that, I remembered how the 
farmers had laughed at me after I had changed it, 
and how I had wondered why. 

In a second my thought put together a whole 
lot of things that might be true. Perhaps that 


The Dog that Disappeared 193 
was a counterfeit the negro had given me. If it 
was, then he had tried to pass it on the farmers 
and they had refused it. Where did he get it? 
He might have picked it up, anyway, but he might 
have got it direct from Castle or Benedict or 
Vilas, and he might be close on their trail instead 
of after Morse. But why had he passed it on 
me, if he knew or even suspected that it wasn’t 
good? 

And then, suddenly, I thought I must still have 
the bill in my pocket, and I pulled out my purse, 
while the men were still busy talking, and I 
looked in it to see. And I suddenly felt very 
strange, I can tell you, when I saw the money I 
had left. For there wasn’t any two-dollar bill 
there. It was gone. 


CHAPTER XIV 


A MESSAGE BY WATER 

I ALMOST forgot the men who were at the other 
end of the cave from me, as I looked for that two- 
dollar bill in my purse, and then, as I tried to 
think what I had done with it afterwards, I re- 
membered just how I had taken it from the negro, 
giving him the silver halves and quarters for it, 
and how I had put it into my purse before I turned 
to ride away. But after that I couldn’t remember 
anything more about it, and I began to think 
that maybe I had lost it. Still, that couldn’t 
hardly be, I thought, or I would have noticed be- 
fore that it was gone, when I had taken my purse 
out to pay for the boat Flora and I had had at 
Frayne, or for the candy I bought. 


194 


A Message by Water 195 

But all at once it just seemed to come to mie 
how and when I had had that bill out of my 
pocket. I remembered that I had paid the man at 
the sanitarium barn for taking care of the pony, 
and I remembered how I had handed the bill over 
to him and had received the change back. And 
when I thought of it I couldn’t believe that the 
liveryman had suspected for a second that any- 
thing was the matter with the bill, or he would 
have showed it so that even I couldn’t help know- 
ing it. People always make a fuss if they think 
anything is wrong about the money you give 
them. So I was doubtful about that bill again, 
right away. I knew I didn’t have any reason to 
believe that it had been a counterfeit, except just 
the foolish notion that that might have been why 
the men laughed at me at the country store. 

I put my purse back in my pocket again and 
sat and thought about it. But before I’d thought 
very long, Benedict and Castle and Vilas stopped 
their conversation, and began to move around 
and talk more easily. Benedict looked at me two 


196 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
or three times, and so did Castle, but Benedict 
only scowled, while Castle didn’t even do that 
much. 

They commenced to talk about the dog again, 
and pretty soon Castle said he was going to have 
a look for tracks up in the bushes. So he climbed 
out of the hole right away, and then Vilas went 
up, too, as he said, to get a breath of air. And 
then we heard them tramping around up above 
very soon, making a good deal more noise than 
the dog did in the night. But they came back 
again after a while and said they couldn’t discover 
anything. Vilas told again what he had told me 
he thought about it, and they seemed to think he 
was probably right. Castle took the pole with 
which he had sounded the pool, though, and poked 
all around the edges of the water, under the over- 
hanging rocks, because, he said, maybe the dogs’ 
body might be floating. 

Benedict seemed to think it was queer the dog 
had drowned so quickly, but they believed the 
water was cold enough to give any kind of a crea- 


A Message by Water 197 

ture the camps in a very few seconds, and so they 
finally concluded the poor dog had gone down 
and been carried through the subterranean pass- 
age. Subterranean, you know, is the word mean- 
ing under the earth, and it means a tunnel or 
underground passage. But I thought again a lot 
about the cave, too, and wondered and wondered 
where the opening was through which Rick and 
I had seen into the pool. And while I was think- 
ing about that, I began to wonder if maybe, after 
all, we hadn’t been mistaken in thinking the cave 
opened into the big hole at all, for it was just pos- 
sible there might be another hole up in those rocks, 
and the cave might lead in there. But I remem- 
bered how Rick’s hat had sailed out of this hole, 
and had come down the stream to the place where 
we found it, and so I was sure again that I must 
have been right. 

Well, it wasn’t very long after Castle and Vilas 
had come back from looking for tracks that I 
could see the whole three were planning to go out 
of the cave. Benedict had been busy putting the 


198 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
gun and the cartridges and things into the big box 
and locking it all up all the time the others had 
been up above, but when they came back he began 
to talk again to Castle about going down to the 
city to get rid of some of the bills there. Vilas 
came over to talk to me then, too, and so I didn’t 
hear what the other two said about their plans 
except that much. 

But Vilas told me that he was going to be away 
that day, all day, and that Benedict was going to 
Frayne to look around, and that I’d be all alone 
all day. He said he was sorry for me, and I really 
guess maybe he was, though he never did any- 
thing for me, except to say so, and to make a little 
fun to cheer me up. But he told me he wanted 
to warn me against trying to get away while they 
were gone, because there wasn’t any chance at all. 
They would pull up the rope, and it would be im- 
possible to climb the rocks without it. And if I 
should try and should fall into the pool with no 
one there to help me, then I couldn’t hope to get 
out, any more than the dog could. 


A Message by Water 199 

It made me sick all over to think of staying 
there alone all day, and I would almost rather the 
men would all have stayed than that. If just 
Vilas had stayed, I would have known he would 
do something to make the time pass, anyway, but 
I didn’t know what I would do alone. Still, I 
knew that if they did all go for all day, I certainly 
wouldn’t pay any attention to what Vilas had 
said about not trying to get away. I would try 
to plan out a scheme anyway, and I would know 
all about that big hole that it was possible to find 
out. So that made me feel a little less bad, even 
though I hadn’t really much hope that I could get 
away, and was as afraid of that pool as could be 
after all that had happened. 

It was some time after that, still, before the 
men went away. They talked a lot more about 
that dog, and how queer it was that he had fallen 
into the water, and they wondered again about 
his sudden disappearance. But they didn’t come 
to anything better than they had in the first place, 
except that they made me think maybe my ideas 


200 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
were just as good as theirs were, and maybe it 
might be after all that the dog had found his way 
out through the cave. When they climbed out 
of the place at last, though, I felt as if it was 
going to be a terrible day for me, and I was just 
sort of desperate with the idea that unless I could 
find some way to escape I might have to stay there 
for days and days and maybe weeks. And I be- 
gan to be just crazy to get away then. 

Well, as soon as the men had gone, and had 
pulled the rppe up, I began to look around. First, 
I looked at the tools on the table again, and took 
a long look at the plates in the wooden box. I 
found that the plates were very much like a bill, 
and I thought probably the money they had made 
must be very much like real money. Then I 
thought about the bag of money I had seen them 
lower into the hole the first time I had seen them 
at all, and I knew now that it must have been 
counterfeit money, all right. Then I got down 
and looked at the bag I had seen under the table, 
and I found the packages of bills there, just as 
I had seen them put into the bag. 


A Message by Water 201 

There were a good many of them. I don’t 
know how many there were, but I found a loose 
package among the others, and I was more inter- 
ested in getting one out and looking at it than in 
counting them. The light in the cave was not 
good at all, except when the lantern was lighted. 
The men had another lamp down there which 
they evidently used to work by, but they hadn’t 
lighted that since I’d been there. But I lighted 
the lantern and put it on the table, sq as to get 
a chance to look at the bill. 

I studied over that a long time. I wouldn’t 
have known that it wasn’t good money. I’m sure, 
and a good many people have told me since that 
it was a very good counterfeit, and I wondered 
and wondered how they were able to do so well. 
Then I put the money all back in the bag, just as 
I’d found it, and put the tools away, and began 
to study on what I was going to try to do. 

The first thing I did then was to take down the 
long pole which Castle had used to sound the pool 
with and try some sounding myself. It was pretty 


202 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

heavy and hard to handle, for there wasn’t much 
room, but I got it down into the water and began 
to poke around with it at the sides. Over at the 
left of the room the men had made was a rock 
which extended out low over the water, just as I 
supposed the one did which hid our cave. So I 
jammed the pole under that one first, and I poked 
and pushed in all kinds of ways to get at a hole 
if there was any there. But I found only rock 
everywhere under and behind the edge, and I was 
sure that I hadn’t got the right place there. 

The next overhanging rock, though, was over 
on the opposite side from the room I was in, which 
I sort of named “the den” to myself — not exactly 
opposite, but nearly, and so it was too far to reach 
with the pole very well. I punched and jammed 
with the pole for quite a while at that one, too, 
but I couldn’t be so sure that there was no hole 
under it, as I had been of the first. 

It was after I’d taken a lot of time over this 
that I thought of the idea of tying another stick 
or pole to the long one and trying what a longer 


A Message by Water 203 

reach would do, so I looked around in the den and 
found a piece of a stick about five feet long that I 
could use. I didn’t find any cord at first, but I did 
in the end, when I looked in one of the boxes 
they had left unlocked, and in which they had told 
me I’d find my lunch for that noon. 

Well, I tied the short stick to the long one 
and made a pretty fair job of it. And I was stand- 
ing up to use it — for I’d been sitting on the sand 
to make the tie — when a piece of the cord that I 
had cut off after tying dropped over the edge of 
the pool into the water near the spring where we 
had got our drinking-water. And just the second 
it dropped it started away from the edge where I 
stood and began to sail slowly across the pool and 
right towards the place where I wanted to poke. 

I stood still and watched. There was light 
enough down there to see the string as it floated, 
and I could follow it with my eyes without any 
trouble, and I hardly moved as it turned and 
twisted slowly around with the little current and 
made its way straight across and under that rock 
and out of sight. 


204 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

I picked up my spliced pole pretty quick after 
it was gone, and pushed it out into the water, too ; 
and stooping down, I just let it slide out across 
the surface and let the current guide the end of it, 
till it reached the rock and went under the edge, 
and kept going and going till I had reached as 
far as I could. And it didn’t touch and rocks 
ahead of it at all, but just lay free on the water, 
and I knew I had found the hole into the cave. 

Well, I drew in the pole again and sat down 
to think; and, after I’d thought quite a while, a 
new idea occurred to me. I wouldn’t dare try to 
swim across that pool myself, but maybe if I 
wrote a message and put it on something that 
would float, it would go out through just as Rick’s 
hat had gone, and would lodge against the weeds 
in the brook outside just as the hat did. And so 
in a minute I was eager to try it. 

Of course, the only chance I had to get my mes- 
sage to anybody was that Rick might just possibly 
take it into his head to come up and explore again, 
as we had planned to do, and that he might see a 


A Message by Water 205 

board or something like that on which I would 
write, and then he would get somebody to search 
for me. It wasn’t a very good hope, either, but 
it was possible. So I hunted around the cave and 
I found a round top of a kind of little cheese box, 
after a while, that seemed to be all right for my 
purpose. 

So then I wrote a note on a sheet of paper, like 
this : 

‘^Rick: I’m a prisoner in the big hole. The 
men are counterfeiters. Witter.” 

Then I put the sheet down flat on the box 
cover, and tacked it on tight with some small 
nails I found, and it seemed ready to float away. 
But the last thing, just before I let go of it, I 
thought it would be better if I would put some- 
thing white on it that would stand up a little and 
maybe attract more attenion. So I go a stick and 
drove it into a crack in the cover, and then I tied 
my handkerchief tight around the top of it, so 


2 o 6 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

that it would hang and flutter in the breeze — if 
there was any breeze outside. 

Well, when I put that little round boat down 
on the surface of the water and saw it start just 
as the string had started and sail right out across 
the pool, I tell you I felt more hopeful than I had 
since I met the men in the woods, in spite of the 
small chance there seemed to be that Rick might 
come up and find my message. It seemed like 
sending a letter that was going to do something 
for me. And it did do something for me, too, but 
not the least bit like what I had thought it might. 
But when it sailed out of sight under that over- 
hanging rock I was pleased, I can tell you. 

As I picked up the pole, intending to put it 
back where it belonged, however, I happened to 
notice one thing about the cave that I hadn’t no- 
ticed before, and that was that over on the right, 
extending along the edge of the rocks, there was 
a little narrow ledge of rocks, that was just about 
wide enough to stand on, and it suddenly occurred 
to me that maybe I could walk along there if I 


A Message by Water 207 

tried. I thought of using the pole, by pressing it 
against the rocks on the other side of the hole, to 
support me and to keep me from falling off, and 
as I began to study the matter, I thought I could 
see stepping places that would take me half way 
around the rocks. 

My heart jumped with hope then, for I thought 
right away that maybe I could get far enough 
around that way to dare to let myself down into 
the water long enough to swim under the rock 
into the cave and so escape, and the minute it oc- 
curred to me my heart commenced to beat with 
excitement. 

In two minutes I had taken off my coat and my 
shoes and stockings, and had tried walking along 
the edge of the den, with the pole supporting me 
out across the pool. And then, too excited to be 
really careful, I suppose, in the next minute I 
was starting along the ledge. 

I would have been all right, too, I believe now, 
if everything had been just as I thought it would 
be. But I hadn’t taken more than eight or ten 


2 o 8 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
steps, picking them cautiously along the rocks, 
before I found I would have to change the posi- 
tion of the pole, and when I came to do it, I found 
I couldn’t, of course, because there was nothing 
to support me while I lifted it from one place to 
another. And all at once I found that I’d got 
myself into a pretty bad predicament, for, when 
I tried to step back, I suddenly discovered that I 
couldn’t turn around without losing my balance, 
and without turning around I couldn’t see where 
to step at all, because the steps were irregular and 
had to be figured out carefully. So there I sud- 
denly found myself, caught tight, with the pole 
in such a position that I couldn’t go forward an- 
other step without danger of its slipping, unable 
to back up the way I’d come, because I couldn’t 
turn to look behind me, and with only the pole to 
hold me from falling into that icy pool at a point 
where I would have at least twelve of fifteen 
strokes to make before I could get back to the 
den. 


CHAPTER XV 


A PAINFUL SURPRISE 

The rocks had been hard enough on my bare 
feet before I found myself in the pickle I was in 
now. But, of course, just as soon as I found I 
couldn’t stir either forwards or backwards from 
the place Fd reached, right away the sharp 
edges of the stones seemed to begin to dig into the 
bottoms of my feet. My arms began to feel tired 
quick, too, with holding myself up on the pole, 
and before I’d stood there a minute, realizing 
what a bad fix I was in, I knew that it wouldn’t 
be many minutes more before I’d fall, sure. 

I tried to turn my head around so as to see be- 
hind me, but I got dizzy when I did that. Then 
I tried feeling behind me for the steps I had put 


209 


210 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
my feet on before, but I couldn’t find one. Next, 
I tried just jumping the pole a little bit at a time 
along the rocks on the opposite side, but when I 
jumped it three times, and, instead of its going 
around as I tried to force it, its end dropped three 
or four inches towards the water each time, I gave 
that up, too. 

Well, I don’t know, but I think I was almost 
frightened out of my wits. I had got so terribly 
afraid of that deep, cold pool, and I knew so well 
that nobody was anywhere about to hear or help 
me if I could even holler loud enough to make my 
voice go up outside of the big hole, that I know I 
thought I would only just get drowned right then 
in that dark, horrible place, and sink just as the 
dog had. And I don’t know how I hung on and 
stood there as long as I did. It was a long while, 
too. 

But the time came at last when my arms and 
my knees commenced to get wabbly, because I 
was straining so, and getting so tired; and then 
the thought that I was very foolish to stand there 


A Painful Surprise 21 1 

and waste my strength so, when my only chance 
was in swimming, made me almost mad at myself 
for waiting even as long as I had. And I made 
up my mind that I would have a try to get away 
from there, anyway. So then I thought carefully 
what to do, and I did it right away, without wait- 
ing. 

I first got down as low as I could by bending my 
knees, just keeping my feet on the path, resting 
my whole weight against the pole and leaning out 
over the water. Then I drew myself all down in a 
bunch, turned my head back toward the den — for 
it was much too far across to the cave opening — 
and then suddenly I threw the pole one side and 
pushed with all my might with my legs, and just 
dived out low over the water as far as I could go. 

Down into that cold, cold pool I went with a 
big splash, and the next second the water was all 
over me, roaring in my ears, striking in like ice 
through my clothes on my arms and legs and 
breast, and oh, but it was cold, too ! But I didn’t 
wait a second. I just struck out fast and furious, 


212 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
swimming harder than I ever had in my life, and, 
quicker than I can write about it, I had reached 
out and grabbed hold of the den floor, and was 
pulling myself up out of the water, so glad to 
get there that I didn’t care, in just that minute, 
even if I was a prisoner in a cave with about the 
only hope of getting away which I’d had just dis- 
appointed and gone. 

Well, of course, I couldn’t sit in those wet 
clothes a second, for the water was the coldest I 
was ever in in my life. I knew' it would hurt me 
if I wasn’t careful. So I undressed quick as I 
could. I threw some wood on the fire, too, for 
there was quite a lot there, stowed in a corner; 
and in a minute more I pulled the big curtain 
across the pool opening and was dancing around 
and swinging my arms and wringing out my 
clothes and then dancing again to get warm, with 
just the firelight around me in the den and the 
heat of the growing blaze making me feel fine 
after that cold plunge. 

Of course I had to dry my clothes before I 


A Painful Surprise 213 

could put them on, so I hung them over the boxes 
the men had sat on and drew them around the fire. 
I was glad I hadn’t had on my shoes and stockins 
and my coat, because they are the hardest things 
to dry out if they get very wet. 

I thought I’d better wrap one of the blankets 
around me to keep me warmer while I was wait- 
ing. So I pulled the ones I had slept on out of 
the corner where I’d seen Vilas put them that 
morning. And then, because they were too big 
to handle very well, I laid one on the floor and 
lay down on it, pulling the end of it around me 
and thinking I would just lie there a while till 
I could put my shirt and trousers on again, and 
then I would try to work some other scheme to 
get away, for I wasn’t discouraged. 

But, what do you think ? I went to sleep. Just 
about as quick as I laid my head down and felt 
warm, I guess, I was dreaming. I hadn’t had a 
wink all the night before, you know, and I guess 
I was tired out, though I didn’t know it. And 
next thing I knew I was waking up to find the 


214 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
fire about all burned out, and my clothes all dry, 
and the shadows so changed around the edge of 
the hole that I knew it must be long after noon, 
at least, though it was still daylight outside. 

Well, it was funny, but the first thing I thought 
of was that I had left the sounding pole lying in 
the pool when I fell, because I hadn’t thought of 
doing anything else. But I knew I must get it 
in if I could, and stand it up where it belonged so 
as not to show the men when they came back that 
I had been trying to get away. So I opened the 
end of the curtain a little, quickly, to see how it 
had fallen. 

I was at the side of the den opposite where 
the climbing-rope hung when it was down, and 
that was the side on which the curtain was pushed 
back when it was open. The cloth came close to 
the rocks on that side, and I didn’t open it very 
much because I was a little chilly after getting 
out of my blanket, and I thought the air would be 
cold on my body without any clothes. As I pushed 
the curtain aside, I looked straight out across the 


A Painful Surprise 215 

water to the rock that I knew overhung the open- 
ing into the cave, and, in a second, I saw some- 
thing that made me forget for a minute every- 
thing else that had happened that day. 

Right across the pool, almost from my very feet 
to the rock over the cave entrance, lay the sound- 
ing-pole, straight in the line of the current from 
the spring into the cave. And the instant I looked 
at it I saw that it was moving in a way the water 
never could make it move. And then, as I stood 
there watching, all at once I saw a man's hand 
come down from behind the rock and take hold of 
one end of the pole. 

The shadow under the rock was a little less, in 
the light that now came down from up above, than 
it had been in the morning, because the light was 
reflected in under there by the water. I saw the 
hand as plainly as I could see yours if you should 
hold it up across the room from me, I guess, 
though it looked a little dark, perhaps. But the 
thing that it was doing was the exciting thing. It 
moved back and forth, pushing and pulling the 


2 i 6 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

pole, as if the man was trying to find out with 
the sounding-pole how wide the pool was, or 
whether the rock on my side was solid. 

The end that lay towards me kicked up the 
water in little splashes and bumped against the 
rock of the den floor quite hard, and I began to 
be pretty sure that was what had waked me up. 
But I paid hardly any attention to that. The first 
thing in my mind was that some person had dis- 
covered the cave that Rick and I had found, and 
that probably that person might help me — unless 
it happened to be one of the counterfeiters. The 
first part of the idea made me ready to holler and 
tell them I was there, and then the second part 
made me afraid to. So I stood still and watched 
again. 

And then all at once I saw something else 
moving in the rock shadow, and in just a minute 
I made out the face of a man, bent clear over till 
his head almost touched the water, with his eyes 
just peering across at the den curtain. 

I couldn’t tell anything about who he was, for 


A Painful Surprise 217 

his face was farther back in the shadow than his 
hand. But I thought out two or three things in 
the little time I saw him there. In the first place, 
he couldn’t be anybody I need to be afraid of, I 
believed, because if he was one of the counterfeit- 
ers, he knew already that I was there. If he was 
somebody who had found my message to Rick in 
the stream, he would be a friend, sure. If he was 
the detective! Oh, when I thought that, how I 
did hope and hope, for even though I did want it 
to be a friend of mine, or of Rick’s come to look 
for me, I couldn’t really be very hopeful that it 
was, and someway I was more ready to believe 
it was the negro detective. I don’t know why I 
felt that way, but I did. 

But I knew that whoever it was it couldn’t hurt 
anything for me to show that I saw him, and so 
I just pulled the curtain one side quick, stepping 
behind it to keep myself out of sight, because I 
wasn’t dressed, but putting my head down lower 
and looking back at him. 


‘‘Who’s there?” I called out. 


2 i 8 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

Well, the man didn’t move or say a thing for 
a second, but then he let go of the pole suddenly, 
and his head disappeared up behind the rock, and 
I was afraid right away that maybe he had been 
a stranger who was scared by seeing me. But 
before I had thought anything further, his face 
came down again, and he called across to me, his 
voice sounding as queer as could be — sort of like 
a voice through a megaphone on the football 
grounds. 

‘‘Who are you?” he asked. 

“I am a boy, being kept prisoner here,” I an- 
swered quickly. 

He stood still, looking at me for a quiet minute. 
It must have been a very hard position to stand in, 
for his head was just about upside down, because 
he had to bend over so far to see out from under 
the rock. But he kept it there while he talked 
some more to me. 

“Anybody there with you ?” he asked. 

“No,” I answered. “Not now — I’m alone.’* 

“Who’s keeping you prisoner?” 


219 


A Painful Surprise 

“Some counterfeiters/’ 

“Who are they?” 

“A man named Benedict, and two other men.” 

He was still a minute, then he went on. 

“How long have you been in there ?” he asked. 

“Since yesterday afternoon.” 

“Where are the men?” 

“I don’t know. They said they were going to 
be away all day.” 

He waited again a second, looking at me, and 
then he put out his hand and moved the pole 
around so that the end of it rested against the 
rock at one side of the opening. 

“Why don’t you climb out?” he asked then. 

“I can’t,” I answered. “They use a climbing- 
rope, and they’ve pulled it up to the top.” 

“Oh !” he said. “Well, keep quiet. I’m coming 
down to see you.” 

And then he pulled his head back out of sight, 
there was a little splashing of the water, and he 
was gone. 

I was about wild, I was so glad, for I was sure 


220 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
help was coming now to get me away. If the 
man would only just let down the rope so I could 
climb out of the hole, that was all he needed to do. 
And then I commenced to wonder how it was 
that he didn’t ask more questions than he did 
about where the big hole was in the rocks, and I 
could only think that probably he must be some- 
body who already knew about where it was, just 
as Rick and I knew before we discovered the cave. 

Well, I just grabbed my clothes and commenced 
to hustle into them, and I was all dressed and had 
the curtain pushed back inside of three minutes, 
I guess. Then I put the blanket I’d slept on 
away where Vilas had put it, and made every- 
thing just as near like it was before I fell into the 
pool as I could. I was so excited that I hardly 
could wait, too, though I knew it would take him 
fifteen or twenty minutes to get out of the cave 
and around up the rocks to the hole. I just had 
to walk up and down the floor of the cave, too, 
because I couldn’t keep still, while I waited, and 
I wanted to yell and shout, only I was afraid to. 


A Painful Surprise 221 

now. Then suddenly it occurred to me to pull the 
pole in out of the pool and put it up where the 
men kept it. And so, just to have something to 
do, I did that. 

The stick I had tied on the end of the longer 
pole when I first commenced poking around with 
it was still fast to it, and so I took out my knife 
and cut it off. Then I stood the long pole up 
carefully, and was just turning to set the shorter 
stick back where I’d found it, when I heard a 
noise behind me. I turned quickly to look, and at 
first I couldn’t see a thing. But pretty quick I 
caught sight of the end of the climbing-ropc 
swinging against the rocks over at its corner. 

Well, I was so much in hopes that now was 
the time when I was going to get away, and that, 
in just a few minutes, I would be out in the woods 
and on my way away from that horrible place, 
that I didn’t think of anything but to run and 
grab that rope and begin to climb. And I didn’t 
wait, either, but just rushed across and caught 
hold of the end and began to pull myself up, put- 


222 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
ting my feet anywhere where I could find a place 
for them. And I got four or five feet up off the 
floor of the den before I found that, as I might 
have known would happen, somebody was coming 
down from above. 

It disappointed me a great deal right then, but 
it made me think that, whoever the man was who 
had found me, he wasn’t afraid to do things. So 
I slipped back again to the floor, and then I stood 
and waited, eager and glad as I could be for the 
man to come. 

But something was the matter. He had stopped 
and wasn’t climbing down, and yet he was on the 
rope, I knew, because it hung out from the rock 
a little, as it wouldn’t have done if no one had 
been holding it. I ran to the edge again and 
looked up. I took hold of the rocks and leaned 
out, trying to get far enough so as to see the top 
of the hole. But I couldn’t make it. 

I wondered what had happened, and I stood 
and waited and waited; and then I suddenly 
thought maybe the man was afraid, because he 


A Painful Surprise 223 

had felt my weight on the rope, and then had felt 
me let go. He might think some trick was wait- 
ing^ for him, so I went to the edge again and 
leaned out. 

“Hello!’’ I called up. 

There wasn’t any answer. 

“Hello!” I called again. 

Still no answer came. 

“Why don’t you come down?” I asked. 
“There’s nobody here but me.” 

I waited again then for a second ; and then, all 
at once, the rope began to move again, and I 
could tell that the person was getting down. And 
I went and stood close by the end of it and held 
it lightly in my hand, to help him if he had any 
hard work finding the last steps with his feet. 

I heard the kicking of his shoes against the 
rocks, and knew he was finding the places to put 
his feet. If I’d thought of it, I would have told 
him there were steps cut, but I didn’t think. And 
then at last I saw his shoes coming, and then his 
trouser legs, and his knees and the bottom of his 


224 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
coat. And finally he suddenly swung himself 
down and in on to the floor of the den, as if he 
knew how awfully well. And he turned and 
looked at me, with his eyes just blazing. And 
who do you think it was? 

It was Benedict! 


CHAPTER XVI 


PULL-AWAY IN EARNEST 

I WAS SO surprised and so disappointed that I 
just sort of staggered back away from him, as if 
he had pushed me. It was not only because I had 
expected to see somebody so different from Bene- 
dict, but because I had hoped and hoped help was 
coming to me, and, worst of all, because he would 
know, of course, that I was just ready to tell any- 
body who came along that he was a counterfeiter, 
and to give the alarm as soon as I got an oppor- 
tunity, too. 

Well, he came right after me. I backed away 
as far as I could till I was against the table at the 
back of the den, and I looked in his eyes and saw 

them all red and hot, as people's eyes look when 
225 


226 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
they are pretty near worn out. And he was just 
about wild with anger about something. 

I knew he was going to hurt me, and there 
wasn’t any use just standing there and letting 
him do it, even as scared as I was. So when he 
reached out after me, I ducked down and jumped 
under his arm and ran for the end of the den. 
But he came right on after me, as if he meant to 
get me, anyway. He didn’t say a single word, but 
just held his hands out with his fingers all open, 
and he looked just like an animal, so mad and so 
fierce. 

I guess I would have yelled and screamed for 
fear of him then if I had been up on the ground. 
But down there in the rocks I didn’t think it 
would do any good, and because he was still, I 
was, too, and I just seemed only to think that I 
wouldn’t let him do anything if I could help it. 
He didn’t come very fast towards me, and I had 
time to think, too, but I couldn’t think of any 
way to keep free from him except to dodge and 
run and be quick. So I tried it. 


Pull-Away in Earnest 227 

I was all hot, all over now, and I was terribly 
excited. I leaned against the rocks as he came 
towards me, and I looked every way for some- 
thing I could use, like a stick or a rock, to make 
him keep away. But he was between me and the 
sticks in the corner, and I couldn’t reach anything 
then. 

Well, I knew that if I let him come too close 
before I moved he would catch me sure, so when 
he was four of five steps from me I commenced 
to dodge, the way you do in pullaway at school. 
He wasn’t very quick, I could see that, and he 
seemed so tired that he was almost like a weak 
old man in his actions. And when he began to 
dodge, too, and then to reach for me again, I pre- 
tended to be going to run towards the pool, and 
then I just jumped the other way and ran past 
him to the other end of the den. 

But he just turned around, as patient as could 
be, and came on after me again, looking just the 
same, only now he sort of crouched down the 
way a cat does, as if he was going to jump on me 


228 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
the next time I dodged, and his face looked so 
awful that I was horribly afraid of him then. I 
would have run and grabbed the rope and tried 
climbing up quick out of his reach, only I knew 
he could take hold of the end and shake me off 
into the pool if I did. 

Of course I was sure he would catch me in a 
minute or two, and I didn’t know what to do. I 
supposed he was mad because of the noise I’d 
made, or something, and that he meant to do 
something terrible to me, and I was just desperate. 
I made up my mind I would fight as long as I 
could, for maybe he wouldn’t be too strong for 
me now, when he was in such a bad condition, 
and maybe I could keep him from getting a chance 
to hurt me. So I edged over towards the comer 
where the sticks were, and a minute later I jumped 
and grabbed one. 

But just the instant I jumped he did, too, and 
he was right on top of me before I could do any- 
thing. I picked up the stick and tried to raise it, 
but it wasn’t any good, and when he grabbed it 


Pull-Away in Earnest 229 
it broke. Then I felt his hand come down on my 
shoulder, and while I ducked and dodged and 
struck at him, I could feel his fingers trying and 
trying to get hold of my collar. And then, sud- 
denly, we backed up and stumbled on to the rest 
of the sticks, and both of us fell on the ground 
together, and I just rolled and kicked and wrig- 
gled right over him, and in a second I was out 
in the middle again and free. 

My breath was so near gone that I could hardly 
get it at all, but I just rolled up on to my hands 
and knees and crawled, when I knew he wasn't so 
close to me, and I got clear across to the other 
end again, and I just had to take hold of the rocks 
there and pull myself up to my feet before I could 
stand up. 

And then, when I looked around, there was 
Benedict lying on the ground just where he had 
fallen, on his back, with his arms stretched out, 
as if he was knocked unconscious, and his head 
lying on one side, as if it was hurt. 

Well, I was half glad I was free from him, and 


230 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
half afraid he was hurt badly. But I could only 
think then of getting my breath, and I just stood 
there panting and watching him, and waiting to 
see him move. But he didn’t move at all. He 
was as still as if he was asleep, and I couldn’t tell 
whether he was breathing or not. 

It didn’t hardly seem possible that he was un- 
conscious, because I couldn’t think of anything 
that would have hurt him enough for that. He 
might have struck his head against the rock floor 
of the den, of course, but it seemed as if I could 
remember his trying to hang on to me as we rolled 
over the floor together, so that didn’t seem very 
likely. I hadn’t got hurt any myself, except the 
back of one of my hands, that was all scraped, 
and I didn’t know that till I started to brush the 
sand off my face, and found blood all over my 
knuckles. 

But Benedict lay so still, in such an uncom- 
fortable postion, and he looked so sort of huddled 
up and unnatural, that I began to think pretty 
soon that he was insensible. I thought at first 


Pull-Away in Earnest 231 
that he was just tired, and once I had an idea 
maybe he was drunk, because he acted so queer; 
but now I was sure he was hurt. 

You know it was a pretty dim light back in the 
cave, away from the front where he lay, and I 
couldn’t see him as well as I could have if he had 
been close to the edge of the pool. But I stood 
and watched him a long time before I made up my 
mind to move at all from where I was. And 
when I finally did decide to move, it was just in 
the most careful way. 

Two thoughts kind of ran together in my mind. 
One was that there was the climbing-rope hanging 
down there now, just waiting for me to go and 
get hold of it and climb out and get away. The 
other was that maybe Benedict was a good deal 
worse hurt than I imagined, and that I ought to 
do something for him now. Maybe he would die 
if he had hurt his head or his neck very badly. 
And when I thought of that, I began to get very 
much frightened. 

Still, I was more than half afraid that maybe 


232 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
he was playing ’possum, as the boys call pretend- 
ing, and that maybe he would just grab for me 
when I went near him, and wouldn’t let me get 
away again at all. He could easily do that if he 
wanted to. 

I walked forward very carefully, then, and 
moved away from the end of the den. I went 
about the way you do when you go to look at a 
firecracker that hasn’t gone off, but that may have 
a spark in it yet. It would be worse than any 
firecracker to have him suddenly jump and catch 
me. I could only see part of his face where he 
lay, and I moved around towards the pool side 
of the den to get more of a view, sO' that I could 
tell more about him. Then I crept along, quietly, 
and ready to jump back if he started for me. 

But he didn’t move. The light was getting less 
and less outside in the big hole, because the sun 
was going down, and so it was getting dimmer 
every minute in the den. But when I got where I 
could see the whole of his face turned towards me, 
I knew that he wasn’t shamming. I never saw 


Pull-Away in Earnest 233 
anybody’s face such a terrible color — all sort of 
bluish pale, his lips all purple and his forehead 
almost white. And across the temple, right beside 
his left eye, there was a long, jagged cut, that 
ran clear back into his hair over his ear, and it was 
bleeding slowly down across his cheek and his 
nose. 

It looked terrible, and I believe when I saw 
him lying there like that, and thought maybe he 
was dying, I was really more frightened than 
when he had been chasing me. You don’t know 
how bad you feel to see anybody hurt like that, 
even if it is your enemy, till you see it. You can’t 
hardly imagine it, and I never had seen anybody 
lie like that before. But I knew that I had to do 
as much as I could right away to take care of him, 
and that I had to think of something besides run- 
ning away. 

I went right across to him and got down be- 
side him. But when I took hold of one of his 
hands I was awfully startled, because there didn’t 
seem to be any life in it at all. And when I started 


234 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
to raise his head up, it was heavy, and it seemed 
awful to think that he couldn’t help himself even 
a little bit. That made me work harder and 
quicker, I tell you. I didn’t know just how to 
tell whether he was alive and just fainted, or 
whether he had been killed by the blow on his 
temple. I’d heard lots of times that it’s awfully 
dangerous to get your temple hurt. But pretty 
quick I thought to feel if his heart was beating, 
because, of course, it would be, so long as he was 
alive. 

Father taught me one time how to find three 
or four places where you can tell whether a per- 
son’s heart is beating or not. Of course, doctors 
usually feel your pulse in your wrist, but there’s 
a pulse on your temple, too, and on the side of 
your lower jaw about half way from the corner of 
it to your chin, and in the hollow of your neck, 
and on the side of your neck, just in front of the 
big muscle that comes up under your ear. Some- 
how, when I tried, I couldn’t find the pulse in 
Benedict’s wrist, and I thought at first that there 


Pull-Away in Earnest 235 
wasn’t any. But then I tried the side of his 
neck, and after a minute I felt the beat in the 
jugular vein, as they call it, though it’s really a 
big artery that goes up to the brain. I would 
have tried to feel on his heart itself, but he had 
on a stiff-bosomed shirt, buttoned into a collar 
at his neck, that I couldn’t get loose quickly. 

Well, as soon as I felt his heart beat I knew 
he was alive, all right, and I felt better, though I 
was pretty scared for him even then. It isn’t 
very much fun to have everything depending on 
you that way when there’s nobody to help you, 
and you know only such a little bit about what to 
do. Of course I thought of climbing the rope and 
running up to the road above and trying to get 
somebody to come, but I didn’t want to leave him 
lying the way he was. I knew that I ought to try 
to bring him back to consciousness if I could, and 
then maybe he would tell me what to do. 

If you throw water in a fainting person’s face 
it’s a good thing to wake them up, and that was 
what I tried. Of course, you don’t want to throw 


236 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
much, like a pail full or anything like that, because 
it might get into his nose and mouth and choke 
him when he breathes. But I got a cup off the 
table and ran to the spring, and I brought the 
cold water and poured it over his forehead, and 
I found his handkerchief in his pocket, and just 
soaked that and put it on his eyes, and I poured 
some water — just a little bit — on his lips. Of 
course, my own handkerchief was gone, because 
I had tied it on my little signal-boat that I’d sent 
off through the cave for Rick, so I had only his 
to use. 

I kept doing that way with the water, and then 
I washed some of the blood away from his wound, 
too; but I couldn’t bear to touch it, because it 
made me kind of faint to see what a bad and 
ragged cut it was. He didn’t seem to be any bet- 
ter for quite a few minutes ; but at last I suddenly 
heard him take a long breath slowly, and then, all 
at once, his eyes opened up and he looked up at 
me. 

By this time it was getting almost dark in the 


Pull-Away in Earnest 237 
cave, and I could only see his face clearly by mov- 
ing so that the little light that was left could come 
from the pool right on to it. And I moved that 
way as soon as I saw that his eyes were opening. 
But the minute he saw me he started and stared 
up at me, and his hand came up and took hold of 
my coat sleeve — ^not tight, as if he thought he had 
caught me now, but soft and easy, as if he just 
wanted to feel what it was made of. 

It surprised me, and I was a little afraid of 
him, too, but I stayed still and kept putting water 
on his forehead. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked me suddenly, 
with his voice all husky, like a sort of half whis- 
per. 

“You got hurt,” I answered. 

He lay still, breathing sort of heavy, but get- 
ting better, I thought, each second. 

“How’d I get hurt ?” he asked me next. 

“You fell on the rock. I guess you struck your 
temple. It’s all cut.” 

He didn’t move, but just looked at me for a 


238 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
second. Then slowly he raised his hand and put 
it on his temple. ‘‘Knocked me out, did it?” he 
said. 

“Yes,” I answered. 

“I was after you,” he went on, and looked at 
me once more in the same queer, steady, only sort 
of half-awake way. 

“Yes,” I said 

“Get me a drink of v/ater,” he said, as if he was 
commanding me. 

He let go of my sleeve and I got up. I had 
the cup still in my hand, and I walked over to 
the spring. When I got there I filled the cup, 
rinsed it, and threw the water into the pool. Then 
I filled it again, and turned around to walk back. 

I was thinking pretty hard. I wasn^t so much 
afraid, now that I saw he wasnh going to die right 
then and there. If he could talk as much as he 
had I knew he would get better, or I was pretty 
sure he would, so I began to think of all the other 
things I had to think about right away. Here he 
was lying helpless, and he couldn’t stop me from 


Pull-Away in Earnest 239 
trying to get away. The other men hadn’t come 
back, and this was a chance I might not get again. 
I didn’t believe Benedict could crawl the width 
of the den to prevent my getting to the rope, and 
if I should just go in a hurry, I could be out and 
away in two minutes, and I could send officers or 
somebody to take Benedict out and take care of 
his hurt afterwards. 

I was so wild to go that I was just ready to 
drop the cup and run, but I didn’t want to do 
that, because I couldn’t really tell just what the 
man might be able to do if I showed too quickly 
what I was after. So I crossed over to him and 
gave the cup into his hand. And then, as he put 
it up to his mouth, trembling, too, while he did 
it, I stepped away from him to the front of the 
cave and felt for the rope in its corner. 

And then — oh ! can you understand how I felt ? 
— ^my hands didn’t find anything, and when I 
turned to look, dim as the light was growing in 
the corners, I knew, without any mistake, that the 
rope wasn’t there at all. It was gone ! Somebody 
had pulled it up! 


CHAPTER XVII 


TWO PRISONERS 

I couLDN^T believe it. When my hands missed 
finding the rope, and my eyes looked and looked 
for it, up and down and at every place where it 
could be caught against the rocks, or even could 
have fallen down, I felt as if it just couldn^t be 
true. 

I knew the line had been hanging down there 
when Benedict had started to chase me, and I had 
looked over at it, two or three times afterwards, 
before I got so busy over him that I forgot it for 
a minute or two. It had been solidly fastened to 
whatever held it up under the rock when Bene- 
dict came down, that was certain, and it never 
would fall of itself — and it couldn’t fall, anyway, 


240 


Two Prisoners 


241 

without my hearing it, I was sure, for it would 
have been pretty likely to strike the water and 
make a splash. 

I stood holding on to the rocks and looking 
around and around and thinking and wondering 
and trying to figure out what had happened. Of 
course, the rope must have been hauled up by 
somebody who knew just where it hung. It must 
have been either Castle or Vilas, then, who had 
done it, though it seemed funny either of them 
should do it without coming down. Of course, 
one of them could have come back with Benedict, 
and might have been waiting outside, and it might 
have been the arrangement that Benedict was to 
stay there that night, while the others pulled up 
the rope and went away. But if that was so, why 
had the man up above waited so long before pull- 
ing up the line? 

But while I was standing there, all at once I 
thought to turn and look at Benedict, and in a 
second I saw that he was watching me, and that 
he was as much surprised as I was. 


242 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘‘Where’s the rope ?” he asked. He had turned 
on his side, with his hand under his head, and he 
still looked pretty sick, though it was getting so 
dark now that I couldn’t tell much about whether 
he was pale or not. 

“I don’t know where the rope is,” I answered. 

He lay looking and looking and thinking, and 
then all at once he surprised me by saying, “It 
can’t be Vilas !” 

“Vilas?” I repeated. 

“No,” he said. “Unless he’s come back and 
means to keep me down here.” 

He spoke pretty hoarsely still, but what he said 
made me wonder; yet I couldn’t believe it was 
anything very serious right away. But very soon 
he went on. 

“Vilas tried to get away from me,” he said. 
“He’s scared !” He looked at me queerly. “He’s 
afraid he’ll get caught by the officers or by — by 
Morse! He skipped off to-day, and I’ve been 
following him all day. I thought I got track of 
him coming back here. But if he did he just laid 


Two Prisoners 


243 

for me, and now he’s got us both down here, 
where we’ll stay for a week at least, till Castle 
gets back from the city.” 

“A week!” 

^'Yes — a week. And there isn’t food enough 
down here for one man for two days !” 

Well, that made me more astonished than 
afraid at first. Benedict talked so easy about it 
that it seemed as if he really didn’t believe the 
things he said. And yet, if it was so, why both 
he and I stood a pretty good show of starving. 

“You don’t mean that Vilas wants you to 
starve?” I asked him quickly, and I came back 
into the den again, because I’d given up looking 
for the rope. 

“Yes,” answered Benedict. “He’d like that 
first rate, I guess.” 

“And Castle’s gone for a week?” 

“Yes.” 

“Won’t he possibly come any sooner?” 

“No.” 

“Doesn’t anybody in the world know about this 
place but those two?” 


244 Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

‘‘No — and we can't get out till one of them 
comes to help us."' 

He lay quiet, and he still seemed as if he didn’t 
care, though he talked different from any way I’d 
ever heard him talk before — so quiet and easy, 
and not seeming to mind telling things to me, 
though he’d hardly spoken to me the rest of the 
time he had been in the den. 

“How’d you get down here in the first place?’’ 
I asked, for I was getting all stirred up now with 
the idea that we wouldn’t just lie there and starve 
without trying something. And it made me think 
perhaps he wasn’t quite in his right mind, because 
he took it so easy as he did. But he answered 
sensible enough. 

‘‘We used a rope the first time we came down,’’ 
he said. “Nobody could make it without.’’ 

It seemed easy for him to talk, so long as he 
talked low, but I guess he was feeling pretty bad 
in his head all the time, for he kept putting his 
hand up to his forehead, and then to his temple. 

“How’d you know this cave was here?" 


Two Prisoners 245 

**We didn^t, and it wasn’t here. We dug it 
out.” 

“Dug it out! Where’s all the dirt?” 

“At the bottom of the pool, if there is any 
bottom,” he said, looking up at me. 

And all at once I remembered the day Rick and 
I had found the cave, and how we had been scared 
because the water turned roily, and I thought in 
a minute that I knew the reason now why the 
mud came out in the stream. One of the men 
had come back to the den after we’d been there, 
probably, and had been digging again while we 
were in the cave — and we had heard the splashing 
of the dirt he had thrown into the pool, too, when 
we had listened at the opening under the rocks 
and couldn’t understand it. 

But thinking of what Rick and I had done that 
day made me think again about that opening 
under the rocks, and I couldn’t help believing that 
there might be some way to get out through that 
way, if we had to, rather than starve ; and all at 
once I began to think that if I tried it the same 


246 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
way by which I had got back to the den when I 
was caught on the ledge trying to get around the 
hole, perhaps I could make it that way. If Bene- 
dict hadn’t been there I would have been ready to 
try it right then, but I wanted to think before 
suggesting it. 

At last, though, I made up my mind that we 
might as well think out what we would try, so 
I started to talk to him about it. 

'‘Isn’t there any way we could get out through 
the cave?” I asked. 

He looked at me, and then looked all around 
the den room, as if he didn’t understand. "No,” 
he said at last, shaking his head. 

"Oh !” I answered, "I mean the other cave.” 

His eyes opened wide at me. "What cave?” 
he asked, louder and more sharply than he had 
spoken since he got hurt. 

It surprised me, and I suddenly wondered if 
maybe his hurt had made me forget about the 
way he had talked to me across the pool from 
under the rock over there. So I answered right 
out. 


Two Prisoners 247 

‘The cave under the rocks/^ I said. 

“Under the rocks?'' 

“Yes — where the water goes out of the pool." 

“Oh," he answered. “Why, no, you little nin- 
kum ! The outlet of the pool is 'way down under 
water here somewhere, and that water is as cold 
as salted ice. Nobody knows where the water 
goes to, either. It may travel a mile under- 
ground." 

I listened to him with my astonishment just 
growing and growing. I didn’t know what to 
make of what he was saying. It couldn't be that 
he thought he could fool me now, after talking 
with me from the cave, and he knew, of course, 
that I had seen him. But when I looked at him 
I was almost sure that he wasn't trying to fool 
me, for he seemed to be just feeling sort of con- 
tempt for me, because I was so foolish. 

And then, all at once, while I was looking at 
him, the wildest kind of a hope came suddenly to 
me — and that was that maybe — just possibly, the 
person who had talked to me from the cave open- 


248 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

ing hadn’t been Benedict at all, and in a second 
my thoughts were whirling and whirling. If it 
wasn’t Benedict, who was it ? I couldn’t tell, but, 
as I had thought before, if it was anybody out- 
side of this counterfeiter gang, then he would be a 
good friend to me, because anybody would try 
to have them caught and to help a boy, who was 
a prisoner, to get away. And right away I be- 
gan to believe mighty easily that it had been the 
man I saw in the cave opening who had pulled up 
the rope after Benedict had come down, and that 
the reason he had done it was because he had seen 
Benedict come down, and wanted to keep him 
there till he could go for help. 

I knew my face was getting red because it was 
so hot, but I knew Benedict couldn’t tell that now, 
for it was just like twilight in the den. But all 
of a sudden he ordered me to light the light. 

“Get a match off the table there and light the 
lantern,” he said. “And then get a blanket and 
spread it down here for me to roll over on to. My 
head aches as if the top would come off.” 


Two Prisoners 


249 

I did as he said pretty quick, but I stopped 
being scared while I was at it, for I was suddenly 
so sure that he didn’t know about the cave under 
the rocks that I just knew the man who had been 
in there and who had talked to me would be com- 
ing back before long to help me or to capture 
Benedict, and, whatever he came for, it meant that 
I would get away. 

I lighted the lantern without much trouble, and 
then Benedict made me draw the curtain and put 
some wood on the fire again. And I did every- 
thing he said, right away, willing now to just wait 
till whatever was going to happen should happen. 
And I got the blanket, as he asked me to, and 
put it down on the floor beside him, and held one 
side of it up for him to roll under it. And then 
I covered him up. 

He didn’t try even once to get up. I guess he 
was dizzy or something. And when he was on 
the blanket he lay so quiet that I thought maybe 
he had fainted again. But after a while, when he 
moved a little and put his hand to his head again. 


250 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
I began to think that maybe just the fact that he 
was so quiet meant that he was getting to feel 
better. 

I sat down on a box by the table and waited for 
him to talk again. I listened, too, now, because 
all the expectation I had had about somebody 
coming had returned to me, and I was just as 
eager as ever, and as nervous, too. I looked at 
Benedict, lying on the floor, and I remembered 
how Vilas had been lying there in almost the same 
spot just the night before, and I thought suddenly 
of all the things that had happened, and how they 
hadn’t done me a bit of good, for here I was just 
in the same position I had been in the other night. 
And I sort of wondered how I could be so hopeful 
about what would happen next. But I was hope- 
ful, and I meant to be ready to do whatever I 
could, too, when anybody came. 

But I hadn’t thought of what Benedict might 
do. I was right in the middle of all the thoughts 
about escape, and the hopes of getting back to the 
camp and to the boys, and all that, and thinking it 


Two Prisoners 251 

had been a mighty long time since I had seen 
them, too, when all at once Benedict pushed the 
blanket one side and looked at me. 

‘Tull out your blanket and lie down,” he said. 
“IVe got to sleep, and I won’t have you sitting 
around.” 

I was pretty slow to get up, because I didn’t 
want to do that for two reasons. One was because 
I was anxious to keep a good watch, for the first 
thing that would show that anybody was around. 
And the other was that I was all at once getting 
hungry and remembering that I hadn’t had any- 
thing to eat since breakfast, so I sat still a second. 

“Do as I tell you!” Benedict said suddenly, 
raising up on his elbow higher than he had at all 
since he had fallen. “If you think I can’t get up 
and make you. I’ll show you pretty quick.” 

Well, I didn’t want him after me again then, 
even though I didn’t believe he could chase me 
around much. His handkerchief, which he still 
had on the cut over his temple, was all soaked with 
blood now, and I knew he must be feeling pretty 


252 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
bad. I was almost ready to feel sorry for him, 
too, because his wet, blood-stained face looked so 
awfully sick in the lantern light. 

So I moved and ^ot up, and went right to the 
corner and pulled my blankets out once more. 
Then I went and got a drink at the spring, and 
then I lay down. Benedict didn’t move while I 
was doing it all; but when I was done, and was 
just stretching out on the blanket, he lay down, 
too, and in a second everything was as still as 
could be. 

I hadn’t any idea of going to sleep at all. I 
thought nobody who knew I was there would wait 
all night to come for me. But I did go to sleep, 
just as I did in the day time, because I wasn’t all 
rested, I suppose ; and when I woke up it was late 
in the night, and the fire was low, and there was 
just the dim light of the lantern still burning in 
the den. 

I felt tired, too, then, and didn’t seem to care 
much for anything but sleep ; but as I turned over 
and stretched out, and was just closing my eyes 


Two Prisoners 


253 

again, something suddenly coming between me 
and the light made me know that somebody was 
moving around. And, when I opened my eyes 
again, there by the table, with his face toward me 
and his back to the lantern, was the black shadow 
of a man — not Benedict — standing, bending for- 
ward, and, though I couldn’t see his eyes at all, 
I knew in an instant that he was watching me. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A WRESTLING MATCH 

So MANY things had happened to startle and 
scare me in the time since I had been in the cave 
that I was expecting something almost every min- 
ute. I was almost sorry I couldn’t go to sleep 
again without bothering, I think, and I guess I 
wasn’t more than half awake, anyway. But when 
the man started to tip-toe across the den towards 
me, and bent down over me, with his hand on my 
arm, I opened my eyes wide and looked in his 
face. And it was the negro! 

I guess I would have hollered with gladness 
then if I’d dared, for, if he was a detective, this 
surely would end all my trouble, and I would be 

free in a few minutes now. But he held his hand 
254 


A Wrestling Match 255 

up quick, as if he was afraid I would make a 
noise, and I thought he was crosser than he needed 
to be about it. 

“Keep still, you,” he said. 

I lay back on the blanket. “I will,” I answered, 
whispering. 

He looked down at me a minute, and then he 
bent over me and held his face close to mine. 

“Do you know who I am?” he asked. 

And then I was sure. “Yes,” I answered. 
“You’re a detective.” 

He kept still, just looking at me, and then 
suddenly he grinned at me. “How did you 
know?” he asked. 

“I guessed,” I said, feeling a little proud. 

“Good guess,” he answered. “But keep still,” 
he added, getting up. “I’ve got to make things 
safe here.” 

I lay as still as I could, and just watched him. 
He went over to the table first, took up the tools 
there, one after another, and then dropped them 
quietly into a bag that lay beside the table, and 


256 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
which I found pretty quick was the one that had 
been under the table with the money in it. Then 
he took the plates of the two-dollar bill out of 
the box and wrapped them in a cloth that he had, 
and put them into the bag, too. And then he tied 
the bag up tight, and lifted it up and set it on the 
table under the lantern, which had been hung on 
a hook in the ceiling. 

As he turned away from the table I saw him 
reach into his pocket and take out a revolver and 
hold that in his hand. Then, all at once, he 
walked across, put his foot on Benedict’s body, 
under the blanket, and began punching and rolling 
him. 

'Wake up, wake up!” he said. "It’s time to 
get up and take your medicine!” 

That sounded funny, and I was almost ready to 
laugh at it; but when Benedict began to move, I 
was too much interested in watching him to think 
of funny things, so I watched and watched. 

Benedict pulled the blanket away from his face 
with both hands, and looked up with the most sur- 


A Wrestling Match 257 

prised lcx>k in the world. And when he was really 
awake — for it was perfectly clear that he had been 
asleep — he just lay quiet and looked up, studying. 

‘'Well?’’ he said, at last. 

"Well,” answered the negro, with his foot still 
on the man. 

"Who are you ?” asked Benedict. 

"You may know me, if I tell you my name, and 
you may not.” 

"What are you doing here?” 

"I’m just investigating.” 

"Investigating what?” 

"This cave.” 

"What for?” 

"Counterfeiters !” 

Benedict was silent a moment. Then he tried 
to start getting up, but the negro pushed him 
down with his foot. 

"Wait now,” he said. "I’ve got all the evidence 
right here in that bag. Don’t worry. I’ll handle 
you all right this time.” 

^'This time!” exclaimed Benedict. They both 
put the emphasis on this. 


258 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

“Yes, this time. I’ve got you at last, Benny, 
old boy !” 

Benedict lay still again. I thought maybe he 
was trying to think of a way to get free and 
scheming to get the better of the detective, and I 
was afraid of what he might do if he was given 
half a chance. But the negro was too much awake 
to be caught. He held his revolver out where 
Benedict could see it. 

“No foolishness, boss,” he said, imitating the 
negro talk for the first time since he came. “Get 
up, now, and do as I tell you,” he went on. 

Benedict crawled out of his blanket, and stood 
up slowly. He didn’t seem to be feeling well at 
all, and I couldn’t wonder at that, either, because 
he was caught as sure as could be, if anybody 
could be sure of anything. But when he stood up 
he turned and looked at the negro so questioningly 
that it seemed to me he was sort of half believing 
that he had been tricked in some way. 

“Who are you ?” he asked. 

“Ask the boy there,” the negro said, nodding at 
me. “It didn’t take him long to guess.” 



‘a’VE GOT YOU AT LAST, BENNY, OLD BOY!” [Page 258.] 








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A Wrestling Match 259 

Benedict looked at me a second, but then he 
looked back at the negro. 

“Fll give you three guesses,” said the negro, 
grinning again. 

But Benedict didn’t answer. He seemed to be 
hardly able to stand up at all, and he backed away 
from the negro, till he got to the table, and half 
sat down on that. 

‘Who am I, youngster?” asked the negro of 
me, over his shoulder. 

I sat up on my blanket now, and looked at them 
both. I thought the detective was having a good 
deal of fun with Benedict, and I began to think 
how terrible it must be to be caught the way he 
was and to know that this meant years in prison 
for him. And I was really sorry for him for a 
second, till I remembered what he had done. Then 
I spoke, because they seemed to be waiting for me 
to speak, though they neither of them looked at 
me, only just steadily at each other. 

“He’s a detective Captain Benson sent,” I said. 

“That’s it — a detective from Captain Benson,” 


260 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
repeated the negro. ‘‘You know who Benson is, 
don’t you, Benedict ?” 

He was grinning all the time, and seemed to 
be enjoying every word he said to Benedict, and 
to be glad his prisoner was so scared. And Bene- 
dict was scared, too — a great deal more so than 
I would have thought he could be, when he had 
seemed to care so little about the rope being pulled 
up and when we thought we might have to stay 
a week in that hole with no food. 

Then, all at once, the negro stopped grinning 
and leaned forward at Benedict, and just pushed 
his face right up close to the white man’s. 

“Do you know now who I am ?” he asked, and 
in such a savage way that it made me afraid, too, 
because he was so fierce. 

But Benedict’s head just dropped, and he looked 
as if he was ready to fall off the table to the floor. 
If the other man hadn’t caught hold of him, I 
guess he would have fallen, too. 

“Here boy, come here,” the negro said. “Take 
this line here,” he said, pulling a roll of heavy 


A Wrestling Match 261 

cord out of his pocket, ‘‘and tie this fellow's hands. 
He’s a dangerous character.” 

I took the cord. I didn’t like to have to do it 
very well, but, if it would help, I knew I ought to. 

“Get up and put your hands behind you,” the 
negro ordered, and Benedict slowly stood up. His 
eyes, which had been on the ground, came up to 
the detective’s face in such a way that it was plain 
to see he was terrified as could be. 

He stepped out from the table a little and put 
his hands behind him, and I stepped around to put 
the cord on his wrists. I wasn’t sure I would 
know just how to do it, but I thought I could tie 
them tight. I had unfastened the cord on the 
ball and had unrolled a little of it, and was all 
ready to begin, when, all at once, the hands I was 
going to tie separated and flew away from before 
my eyes, and I jumped aside and looked around 
in time to see Benedict throwing his arms around 
the detective’s body, holding the detective’s arms 
fast to his sides, and next second they were whirl- 
ing around the room of the den, as if they were 
dancing the wildest dance you ever heard of. 


262 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

It was so quick, and, after it started, so furi- 
ous, that I didn’t even understand it till they were 
in the crazy wrestling match, for that was what it 
was. And then all I could do was to stand and 
watch them, astonished at the quickness Benedict 
had shown and at his strength in hanging on, and 
just amazed to see how helpless the negro was 
to break away from his grip, though he was strug- 
gling with all his might. 

Around and around they went, scuffing up the 
sand, bumping into the table, kicking the boxes 
out of their way. They banged into the rocks at 
one end of the den, and then whirled away down 
the room and over towards the edge of the pool. 
Then they came back again towards me, and 1 
knew they’d hit me and probably just crush me 
against the table if I didn’t dodge. And I jumped 
to the end of the table and then climbed up on it 
to be out of the way. 

Frightened? I never saw anything like that 
awful wrestling in all my life. Benedict was hang- 
ing on just as if he couldn’t let go, and the negro 


A Wrestling Match 263 

was tearing and fighting and jerking and wrench- 
ing to get even an arm free. 'They staggered one 
way and then another. Once I thought sure they 
would go into the water next minute, and another 
time I thought that was just where Benedict was 
trying to drag the detective. Then they would 
strike against the walls so hard that you'd think 
it would break their arms. They stood almost 
still twice, and I could see then that the negro's 
hands were locked around Benedict's back, too, 
and that he had dropped his revolver somewhere 
in the scuffle, though I hadn't heard it and couldn't 
see it on the floor. Finally they had one awful 
struggle right at the edge of the rock floor, and 
even hit the curtain two or three times, till they 
whirled suddenly away in again, when one of 
them raked his feet right through the dead fire, 
and the ashes flew all over the room in a cloud. 
And then when the whole air was thick with the 
dust, down they went at last, and rolled over and 
over till the struck against the end of the den, 
and stopped. 


264 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

How in the world Benedict’s strength lasted all 
through it I don’t know, for he had been so weak 
after his fall, and apparently so tired and worn 
out when he had first came back to the den in the 
afternoon, that I had expected every second he 
would give out. But he must have been bluffing, 
partly, anyway, about feeling so bad. And it 
wasn’t till they were on the floor at the end of 
the den, smack up against the rocks, that he did 
give out. And then he fainted again. I didn’t 
know it at once, of course, but when the negro got 
up from the floor, after lying there a minute, and 
Benedict lay still, I understood. 

You never saw two such looking men. They 
were covered with ashes, from head to foot, their 
faces full of them. Benedict’s wound on his tem- 
ple was bleeding again, and the detective had been 
cut in the lip, and that was bleeding. Their hands 
were all bruised up where they had struck the 
rocks, and their clothes were all pulled apart in 
every way, almost. 

But the negro didn’t wait a second. He was 


A Wrestling Match 265 

panting and gasping, but he come across and 
grabbed the string out of my hands, for I was still 
holding it, and then he went and turned Benedict 
over on his face and corded his hands up tight 
behind him. Then when he was done he turned 
to me. 

^‘See how that was done?’’ he asked. 

“Yes, partly,” I answered, half afraid of him, 
because his eyes were glittering so, and because 
he was so savage about it. 

“Well,” he answered, “turn around here and 
I’ll show you how it’s done, once for all. I may 
want help from you again.” 

I hesitated, for I didn’t know why he should 
do that, but he reached out and caught me by the 
shoulder, twisting me around so quick that it 
nearly tripped me up. 

“Do as I tell you,’ he said, and so I put my 
hands behind me, crossed, and tried to pay atten- 
tion, for I thought he really believed it was neces- 
sary to teach me how to tie the cord. 

He put the cord around my wrists, over and 
under and across and back, and drew it tight. 


266 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

“Oh !” I said, “that hurts 

“It ought to hurt,’’ he answered, still breathing 
hard. “If it doesn’t hurt it won’t hold. There, 
I guess that would hold you all right, wouldn’t 
it?” 

“Yes,” I answered; “but please untie it now. 
It cuts so !” 

“No,” he said. “I guess I’ll leave that on there 
for a while, just to teach you a lesson.” 

He cut the end of the long cord off, and turned 
me around. 

“Now sit down on that box and stay there till I 
tell you to move,” he said, sort of mad. And he 
pushed me down on a box by the end of the table. 

“But you needn’t keep me tied up,” I said, for 
it made me pretty mad that he should treat me so. 

“Why needn’t I ?” he asked. 

“Because. It’s just as if I was one^of the coun- 
terfeiters, the way you’re doing.” 

“How do I know you aren’t one of the counter- 
feiters?” he asked, turning away from me. 

I was so surprised I couldn’t answer for a sec- 


A Wrestling Match 267 

ond, and he went over to where Benedict was ly- 
ing. He turned the man over and looked in his 
face. Then he felt his pulse, just as I had that 
afternoon. But this time Benedict came back to 
consciousness again without any water, and right 
while the negro was bending over him, and the 
first I knew, he was beginning to moan and cry 
and beg. 

‘T know you !” he said. ^'Oh, I know you, all 
right! Don’t do anything to me! Let me go! 
I’ll do anything you say! I’ll give you anything 
I’ve got! I’ll ” 

Then the negro stood up. 

''Cut it!’ he said. "That won’t do you any 
good. 'I’ve got you now, and Tve got you right, 
and I guess it’ll be you that gets it this time. I 
can turn you over to the sheriff or the secret serv- 
ice officers, and give them just your tools and stuff 
here, and you’ll go up for counterfeiting. Or I 
can just keep you here till I decide what else I 
might do with you. This is pretty convenient 
here, this is. I can wait. I’ll have plenty of time 
here.’’ 


268 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

I stared at him. He seemed to be a queer kind 
of man. But I didn’t have time to think much 
about what made him act so, for he turned on me 
then, too. 

‘^And you,” he said. “You’re a nice, convenient 
boy, too, you are. But you happen to be con- 
venient to me this time. I saw you splashing in 
the water here yesterday, and I found your little 
raft down the stream, with the note to your 
friends. That’s how I got in here if you’d like to 
know how you helped me.” 

He stopped and looked at me a minute, and, for 
the first time, I began to think there was some- 
thing about him that I knew, something familiar. 
I leaned forward and stared hard at him in the 
lantern light, but I couldn’t make anything of his 
black, ashes-covered face. But then, all at once, 
he suddenly threw his head back in his collar, 
and his mouth opened, and he commenced to 
laugh — a dry, silent laugh that didn’t seem to 
have the least fun in the world in it. And, oh ! I 
knew him in an awful second, when my heart 


A Wrestling Match 269 

sank to the very lowest it could ever go, and when 
my body seemed to get cold with fright. 

He was Morse — ^Lemuel Morse, the escaped 
convict ! 


CHAPTER XIX 


RECOGNITION 

I DON^T believe anybody could have known him 
right away, with his beard shaved off and his hair 
cut short, and with the sort of brownish-black 
color all over his face. I found out afterwards 
that he had used a sort of die to color his face and 
hands and head with, and he imitated the negro 
talk so well that nobody knew him, not even men 
like Benedict and Vilas and Castle, who had all 
known him before. I believe Benedict didn’t 
know who he was till the time just before he 
jumped on to him and they began their fight. 

I can remember almost everything about how I 
felt the other times when I was scared there in 
the den, but I don’t seem to know just what I 

270 


Recognition 271 

thought about when I recognized Morse. All I 
can think of when I try to remember is just how 
his horrible black face laughed and laughed while 
I sat there and stared at him. He seemed so 
pleased with himself because he had tricked me 
so and because he had tricked Benedict, and the 
first thing he did after he had laughed was to be- 
gin to tell what clever things he had done. And 
he just gloated over us, and snapped his fingers 
in Benedict’s face and made fun of me, and called 
the police and the prison keepers all fools, and 
went on till you’d almost think he was crazy. 

I’ll never forget it. It was horrible. 

‘‘Detective !” he said, laughing in my face. “I’m 
a detective! That’s good! You’re a clever boy, 
all right. You’re a fine, nice boy. You’re a smart 
boy. And you’re the boy that got me caught last 
year — caught and sent up. The boot’s on the 
other foot now, ain’t it? I guess I caught you 
with the counterfeiters, didn’t I? I guess I can 
get even now, can’t I ?” Then he turned to Bene- 
dict. 


272 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

“Who did you think it was spying around here 
last night — the dog? You didn’t think old Lem 
Morse was so close, did you? You didn’t know 
he’d watched in the woods here for you for a 
week and seen you come and go. You didn’t 
know he’d been down in your slick little cave here 
and got some of your slick little two-dollar bills, 
and showed ’em up for counterfeits around the 
whole country up here, did you? You didn’t 
know it was me made it hard for you to pass the 
stuff.” 

He went over to Benedict and took him by the 
shoulders and lifted him up, setting his back 
against the rocks. Then he pulled the curtain one 
side. 

“Look!” he said, pointing across the pool. 
“You didn’t know tnere was a way in and out 
of this place better than over the rocks, did you ? 
Did you ever go through the cave that opens be- 
hind those stones over there? The kid here knows 
it is there. I know, because he sent a float through 
there to warn his friends that he was in here.” 


Recognition 273 

He turned to me suddenly. “But it won’t do 
any good now/’ he added, “because I got to it 
first.” 

Then he whirled back to Benedict. “Why, even 
the dog found his way out through that cave,” he 
went on. “What did you think became of the 
brute after I threw him down in here? I knew 
you heard me up in the bushes. It was the only 
time I made a fool move that came close to putting 
you wise. I threw the dog down here to make 
you think it was him. And you fell to it, too, 
didn’t you?” 

He began walking back and forth up and down 
the den. I got as far back beside the table as I 
could, too, for he was just like an animal that you 
see in the zoo, walking and walking in his cage 
and looking at you out of the corners of his eyes, 
as if he’d take the first chance he could to reach 
out like lightning and claw you. 

“You thought you could run this gang the way 
old Morse used to, did you ?” he began again, to 
Benedict. “Why, you wouldn’t last three months. 


274 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
you wouldn't. You'd have got caught without 
any help from me — ^you and all the rest of them. 
You all hated old Morse, and you're all afraid of 
him, but he's the one that knows how. Humph !" 
He laughed. ‘‘The dog knew more than the lot of 
you, and the youngster here twice as much !" 

Of course, what he said made me understand a 
lot of things, and I wondered so much at it all 
that I got half confused. But from what he had 
said, and what else he told us, I found out pretty 
near all that had happened. He had been out of 
prison now about three weeks, and he had had a 
pretty hard time getting enough to eat and keep- 
ing out of sight. But nearly all the reports about 
him the papers printed were not true. But he 
told us that he did try to see Midgely's girl, as 
he called Flora, over at the sanitarium at Frayne, 
and then to show how clever he was he said that 
he met the very detective who was sent by Cap- 
tain Benson to look for him, and led him off into 
the woods and made him believe that he was only 
a negro who had been sent by the real Morse with 


Recognition 275 

the note to Flora. And then, to fool everybody 
after he knew the detective had gone back to 
the city, he wrote and carried another note to 
‘"Midgely’s girl,” making believe it was from the 
detective. 

He told Benedict about meeting me at the coun- 
try store and getting me to change the two-dollar 
bill for him, too, and he laughed and laughed over 
my believing he was a detective, and over the way 
I had acted about the money. He talked and 
talked, first mad and bitter at everybody, and then 
making fun of everybody and telling how smart 
he was. And you couldn’t help thinking he was 
smart, too, because he had certainly fooled a lot 
of people. Oh, yes, and he told about climbing 
trees to watch people, and how he happened to 
wear the climbing-irons, because he used to be a 
telephone linesman once in the city, and he knew 
just how to handle them. 

Benedict just sat still and listened and watched 
and watched him, all through it all. Of course, it 
wasn’t Benedict who had been in the den with 


276 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
me when the dog fell into the pool, but Vilas had 
told him about it, so I guess he understood all 
about the whole story. Morse, I guess, thought 
Benedict had been there. But he told about lying 
in the bushes for hours and hours and watching 
to see who came to the big hole, and when, so that 
he could know when to come himself ; and he told 
all about how he had come down himself the first 
time on the very night after Rick and I had found 
the cave, although he didn’t know just when we 
had found it. And he told, too, that he had been 
watching every day for Benedict to come back to 
the hole alone so that he could catch him there 
when the others were away. And at last he told 
how he had seen Benedict come down the evening 
before and had come up behind him and pulled up 
the rope. 

It was a long time before he ended all he had to 
say and before he got through crowing about it. 
I suppose he thought it didn’t matter how much he 
told us now, because we couldn’t see or tell any- 
body else till he got ready to have us. But at the 


Recognition 277 

end he gave us a startling piece of news, and that 
was that it had been he who had frightened Vilas 
the day before. Then I found out that it was 
true, as Benedict had said, that Vilas had run 
away from him, and there was no danger of his 
ever coming back, Morse said, because he knew 
Morse had come and would turn the whole crowd 
over to the police. He seemed to know that Castle 
had gone to the city, too. 

Well, I wasn’t much afraid of being turned over 
to the police, but I could hardly believe that was 
what Morse meant to do, for he laughed as if he 
was joking every time he spoke of it. The way 
Benedict kept watching him and watching him, 
too, made me feel a great deal more afraid than 
I had felt before, because it seemed as if Benedict 
had just about given up every hope in the world, 
and was just expecting something awful to hap- 
pen. His eyes just followed‘Morse around, while 
he had a little scowl on his face, with a queer 
look on his mouth — all drooping, as if his courage 
was scared out of him. And in the end I found 


278 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
that what he did intend to do was a good deal 
worse than giving information to the police. 

It was while Morse was still talking that I no- 
ticed it was beginning to get light out in the hole. 
You know it was coming morning again. Before 
he stopped telling all the things he had done, it 
was almost light enough to see things without the 
lantern. At last, too, he seemed to notice it, and 
when he did he stopped talking as short as if he 
didn’t mean to ever say another word. 

He began looking around the den then. He 
had already gathered up the counterfeiting tools 
and those things. Now he went and looked at the 
box in the corner, which had a lock on it, and he 
examined it. And when he had asked Benedict 
for the key, and Benedict had said Vilas carried 
it away, he took a heavy hammer and just 
smashed the top board right through, and then 
pried the lock with an iron bar till he broke it 
open. 

He took the gun out that had been put in there, 
and then he found some cartridges for it, and he 


Recognition 279 

put them in his pocket. Then he pulled out the 
things to eat that were left, and set them up on the 
table. And when I saw them I just commenced 
to feel faint, because it was so long since I’d had 
anything. But he didn’t pay any attention to me 
or to Benedict then, and went on looking for 
things in the chest. He didn’t find much else, 
though. 

After that he started up the fire again with 
some soft wood and shavings, and I was glad he 
did that, for I was cold, I can tell you, and I felt 
just about sick. But I had been so afraid I’d 
hardly thought about it till Morse began to be 
quiet. When he sat down on one of the boxes, 
though, and began to eat, he turned and laughed 
at us again as if just to bother us because we 
hadn’t anything. And while he ate I couldn’t look 
at him, because it made me feel so sick. 

It lasted an awfully long time. The cord hurt 
my wrists horribly, and the box I was sitting on 
was so uncomfortable that I thought my back 
would about break in two if I couldn’t change 


280 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
pretty soon. But I didn’t dare, for every time I 
even twisted around Morse’s eyes would come 
over to me quick as lightning, and open up a little 
in a fierce sort of way, as if he was just ready to 
hit me if I stirred. So I sat there and sat there, 
about as miserable as anybody could be, and with 
my heart just beating hard every time I thought 
to remember that this man who had us in his 
power was Morse, the leader of the silver thieves, 
whom I had helped send to prison. I could just 
about have screamed sometimes, because I felt so 
hopeless and desperate over being caught so. And 
when I remembered the night at school when I 
had thought Mr. Lally was Morse coming into 
my window to look for me, and how the boys had 
laughed afterwards, I thought they wouldn’t 
laugh much now if they could see me or if I ever 
saw them again. 

But when I thought that, I suddenly remem- 
bered that I’d made up my mind I wouldn’t be a 
coward, whatever happened to me, so I just set 
my teeth hard to keep down the sick feeling and 


Recognition 281 

to keep from begging Morse to let me go, as I al- 
most was ready to do once. But I did keep still. 

Well, when Morse had eaten all he wanted, he 
gathered up what was left, which wasn’t much, 
and he went to the edge of the pool. 

‘‘Benedict,” he said, “look, and I’ll show you 
where the dog went.” And he threw all the stuff 
out into the pool. There was a wooden dish in 
which the Frankfurters had been, and when it 
struck the pool it happened to be right-side up, 
and floated, of course. The rest of the stuff sort 
of floated, too, but the dish stood up, white and 
light, and the minute it was in the current it 
showed which way the flow was, and started sail- 
ing right away towards the overhanging rock. In 
just a minute, too, it sailed right under the edge 
of the rock and was drawn back into the darkness 
of the cave and disappeared. 

We all watched it, and when I looked at Bene- 
dict I saw that he was as much interested as I 
was, maybe more. 

“Now,” said Morse, “you know how deep and 


282 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

how cold the water is here. Even a good swim- 
mer wouldn’t have much show of getting across to 
that opening. I know you can’t swim, Bennie, 
any more than I can, and I never learned. The 
boy here won’t dare try it, for he’s had one taste 
of it, as I know, for I saw him. It occurs to me 
that this prison here is just as good a place as 
any other prison, and I’m thinking I’d better just 
let well enough alone and leave you here. Per- 
haps the birdies and the squirrels will bring you 
something to eat for a day or two, while I’m get- 
ting off to South America or somewhere, and then 
I’ll write to the authorities — Captain Benson, for 
instance — to come and give you a transfer. May- 
be by the time they get here you’ll be ready for 
a change, even to a regular prison. Of course, I 
couldn’t think of letting you starve, though as to 
that I can’t be responsible, you know, if my letter 
from South America might happen to miscarry.” 

I couldn’t believe he meant what he said, but the 
way he looked at Benedict at the end made me just 
grow all cold with horror of him again. 


Recognition 283 

“I think ril take Castle to South America with 
me,” he added, after a minute. '‘He’s the only 
good man in the gang now, and if he hasn’t got 
into jail down in the city, I guess he’ll go with 
me when he learns what’s happened up here. 
That’ll leave this place here to yourselves, and 
you won’t be likely to be disturbed, I guess.” 

He stood still on the edge of the pool, looking 
out and kicking the rock softly with his foot, 
grinning to himself, and that’s the way I can re- 
member him the clearest as I think of all that hap- 
pened. 

But pretty soon he turned and came across to 
me. 

“I guess you can’t either of you do much dam- 
age for a while,” he said, “but I think I’ll make 
sure that you’ll take some time getting started.” 
And then he took the cord, and tied it around my 
hands again, and then tied it around the table leg. 
Then he lifted the bag of tools and threw them 
back against the wall on top of the table. 

“I won’t take those, either,” he said. “They’ll 


284 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
do more good here when the officers find you — if 
they ever do/’ 

Then he went across and tied a cord to Bene- 
dict’s hands and he made him draw up his knees, 
and then he tied the cord down around and around 
his feet, till it was sure that all he could do would 
be to roll, if he could do even that. And then, 
after it was all done, he stood and looked at us 
and laughed again quietly. 

''Good-by,” he said. "You’ll do for a few 
days, anyway. I’ll pull up the rope after me when 
I’m up and cut it.” And then he went to the 
climbing-rope and, without another word, but 
only turning his grinning face towards us as long 
as we could see him, he climbed slowly up out of 
sight. And when he had reached the top he drew 
the rope up, as he had promised, and next instant 
it all came whirling down with a great splash into 
the pool, and straightened out like a water serpent 
to float away through the cave. 


CHAPTER XX 


THAT TWO-DOLLAR BILL 

In an instant after the spray of the rope’s splash 
had fallen, it was as still all over the woods and 
rocks as if nobody in all the world was stirring. 
Of course it was very early in the morning, and 
you wouldn’t expect that anybody would be 
around yet. But it was so quiet after all that had 
happened that it seemed as if all the noises in the 
world had stopped at once. 

I was about hopeless, and so cold and sick, and 
feeling so bad that I didn’t know what to do. But 
even at that I was glad that Morse had gone. He 
was such a terrible man that, even if he had left 
us the way he had, with almost no chance that 
anybody would find us or help us, it seemed for 

a minute easier to have him away. 

285 


286 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 


I looked over at Benedict, and he looked at me. 
He was already trying to get out of his cord, but 
I could see that it was going to be terribly hard, 
and was going to take him a long, long time. He 
pulled and twisted and rolled around, but it was 
plain to see that he was so bruised and hurt from 
his wrestling and from the wound he had got in 
his fall the night before, that he could do very 
little at a time, before he had to stop and rest. 

I knew, too, that even if I saw that he was get- 
ting away it wouldn’t do me any good, for if he 
saw a chance to escape he wouldn’t help me at all, 
I was sure, for he would rather leave me there 
than to have me make an alarm. So I began to 
try and see if I couldn’t find a way to get loose, 
too. 

At first it didn’t seem any use, for the cord 
we were tied with was stout linen cord, a quarter 
of an inch thick, I guess, and it was so tight on 
my wrists that I couldn’t move my hands with- 
out its feeling as if it would cut through the flesh. 
And I couldn’t work very long at a time on it, 
either, because I got tired. 


That Two-Dollar Bill 287 

But, as I kept on trying, some way I commenced 
to feel better. I got warmer and my stomach felt 
better. Father told me afterwards that it was 
probably because I was getting my blood all 
warmed up again, and because having something 
to do gave me some hope. And just as I began 
to feel better I found out something that helped 
me. I found that I could move the cord on the 
table leg up and down without very much trouble, 
and in a second I knew that if I would work it 
that way I could wear it in two after a while. 

But when I started to work I knew right away 
that I might just as well wear out the cord that 
tied my wrists as the one that tied me to the table, 
so I found a way I could move my hands so as 
to bring the cord out where I could make it touch 
the table leg. And then I began. And then sud- 
denly a lucky thing happened, for I got off the 
box I was on, and slid down to the floor by the 
post, to work better, and there I found all at once 
that there was a nail sticking out a little from 
where a cross-piece was fastened between the table 


288 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
legs, and when I tried I found I could work the 
cord against it. 

Well, it was awfully hard work, and I skinned 
the back of one of my wrists pretty bad, rubbing 
it against that nail sometimes when I got so tired 
that I couldn’t keep the cord against it. But, 
really, I don’t think it took me over five minutes 
to cut one place through the cord; and then, be- 
fore I knew it, I felt it all loosen around my 
hands, and in a second I was free. 

My hands ached like everything, you can just 
know, but I wouldn’t wait to do anything to 
them then. When I got free Benedict was lying 
with his back to me, because he had twisted 
around that way, but he didn’t seem to be any 
nearer getting away than ever. And I didn’t dare 
go and let him free, either, for I was afraid of 
what he would do. Just as soon as he heard me, 
though, as I stepped on the floor, he turned over 
and looked up. 

‘Wou free?” he asked quickly, the first words 
I’d heard him say for ever so long. 


That Two-Dollar Bill 


289 


I answered. 

''Here, then,’’ he said, "help me. Untie these 
cords.” 

"I don’t think I’d better,” I answered. "I don’t 
know what you would do.” 

"Do!” he exclaimed. "I’ll help you get away. 
Untie these cords, and hurry up about it.” 

He was trying to scare me now, but I wasn’t 
afraid, for I knew he was tied fast enough to last 
for a while, and I meant to try right then to get 
away by myself. I meant to try using the pole 
and jumping as far as I could over towards the 
cave entrance, and then swimming the rest of the 
way, just as I did when I got caught on the side 
of the pool. So I didn’t pay any more attention 
to Benedict at all, but I just walked around him 
to the place where the pole stood and took it 
down. 

It was heavy, and tipped over towards the pool, 
so that it was hard to keep it from falling over 
into the water again. And I had to carry it 
along the very edge of the pool to keep it from 


290 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
hitting the rocks above, till I could get to a place 
where I could try my plan, 

Benedict spoke once or twice again, but he 
didn’t move to try to get near me, and I was so 
interested in trying to handle the pole and watch 
him at the same time that I hardly heard what 
he said. But I went right on, taking the pole 
across the den ; and when I got about the middle 
I rested an end on the den floor, and turned to see 
what sort of a chance I seemed to have to get 
across. 

It seemed an awfully long ways over to that 
overhanging rock when I thought of trying to 
jump. I think I said it was twenty feet, but it 
might have been a good deal more. It was farther 
than I could jump even with the pole to help me, 
with the little start I had and with the pole lean- 
ing away from me at the beginning. For I had 
made up my mind to use the pole if I could, just 
as you do in the pole vault, only to make as wide 
a jump as I could and land as far over and as 
near the rocks as possible. 


That Two-Dollar Bill 291 

As I stood there thinking about it, I remem- 
bered that I didn't know whether any rocks might 
be in the way over there on that other side, except 
that I hadn't found any with the pole when I had 
poked around in the pool the first time. And I 
didn't know for sure that if I ever got across to 
the rocks the opening there would be big enough 
for me to get through. But I was sure that I 
couldn't hope for anything to help me unless I 
did try that way of escaping, so I just wouldn’t 
think of anything but trying and getting out. 

It was hard to make up my mind at the last, 
but, after I’d managed to take off my coat and 
my shoes, without letting go of the pole, I was 
ready. Benedict had watched me, without mov- 
ing, till the last, but when he saw I was ready he 
suddenly spoke. 

‘‘If you let me loose before you try that,” he 
said, “I can help you if you fail. I can pull you 
out if you don‘'t succeed in making it.” 

That made me think, but I didn't dare trust 
him. ‘Tf I get out,” I said, ‘T’ll send somebody 


292 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

to help you. Fm going to get out, too,” I added> 
because it made me afraid to try if I thought I 
might even possibly fail. 

Well, I tried the pole on the edge of the rock, 
and then, when I knew it stood solid in a sort of 
little hollow, I drew two or three good long 
breaths, the way you do when you are going to try 
to swim under water, and then I just leaped up 
into the air and grabbed hold of the pole as high 
as I could, and in a second I was swinging out 
over the pool with only just the one chance that 
I could get away to the cave and out that way. 

But the second I jumped I knew Fd made a 
good one, for I got up so well on the pole, and it 
turned and tipped so well and so straight with my 
weight, that I knew Fd started fine. And when 
I just threw my feet away out in front of me and 
just flung myself as hard as I could in a wide, 
wide jump, I could have yelled with my gladness 
over success, for I cleared as much as fourteen or 
sixteen feet of the distance before I struck the 
water. 


That Two-Dollar Bill 293 

Well, the jump gave me so much confidence 
that the second I was in the water I just threw 
myself through it, hand over hand, with the long- 
est reaches I could make, and, before the cold had 
really made me feel it very much, I was under 
the overhanging rock, and next second I felt the 
edge of the under-water rocks over which the 
stream flowed, and knew I was safe. 

I pulled myself up inside that cave, the gladdest 
fellow that ever lived, I guess, and though it was 
so dark, I just plunged in and hurried and hur- 
ried, splashing into the pools, bumping the walls, 
stepping on the sand when I could, but just trying 
to get out as quick as possible, for I knew that 
the cold of the water in my clothes might hurt me 
in there if I didn’t. 

It’s a wonder I didn’t get hurt, hurrying 
through the cave that way, but I seemed to re- 
member the way mighty well, seeing I was only 
through it once before. I struck my foot once, 
awfully hard, against a rock, but I hardly knew 
it till I got outside. And then at last I saw the 


294 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
entrance ahead of me, and then I just ran for it, 
and out I went, staggering and pretty near fall- 
ing, but just crazy to be free and see the sunlight 
and the woods and all. 

But what do you think? The second I stepped 
out into the light I just saw a glimpse of some- 
thing big and black near my right hand, and some 
big, powerful hands just reached down and 
grabbed hold of me and held me tight. And when 
I turned, just screaming with terror, I looked up 
square into a face I knew — the face of Captain 
Benson. 

Talk about being surprised ! I was never more 
so, even when I knew Morse in the den, I guess ; 
but it was a glad surprise, I can tell you, and when 
I was sure who he was, I just grabbed him around 
the neck as if he was my father, and I guess I 
commenced to cry, too, because a while later I 
found out that I had been crying. But he just 
picked me up in his arms, and he stepped right 
out into the stream, hardly saying a word, but 
just holding me tight. And he waded right down 


That Two-Dollar Bill 295 
stream — for he had rubber hip-boots on — and 
climbed over the fallen logs, and down the little 
falls, and in a minute he had me on the grass- 
bank where Rick and I had stood when we first 
found his hat, after it came out through the cave. 

Well, of course I was safe then, and all the 
questions I asked and he asked anybody can im- 
agine. He made me undress quick, and stand in 
the sun, which was fine and warm, and then he 
took off his coat and wrapped it around me, and 
started down hill with me in his arms again. And 
then what do you think I found had happened? 
Captain Benson wasn’t alone up there by a long 
ways. He had a lot of men with him, and they 
were all around in the woods, and in two minutes 
I found out that they had caught Morse, for they 
had been watching the cave and the big hole nearly 
all night, it seemed. 

They had a launch down at the river, and I was 
carried right to it, and there I found Rick and 
Mr. Lally together. And there were a policeman 
and Morse, handcuffed to each other, and there 


296 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
were two of the other boys. And when they 
saw me everybody just yelled, as if they were 
glad, and I guess they were — except Morse. I 
guess he wasn’t glad. And then I learned every- 
thing and told everything so quickly that I guess 
everybody must have talked at once. 

Of course I wondered very much how they all 
happened to be there, but I had to tell my story 
first, and as soon as Captain Benson heard about 
Benedict lying bound in the cave, he took a rope 
from the launch and went back. And later they 
got to him 'all right and got him out. But the 
way they happened to hunt for me was so strange. 

I hadn’t thought anybody would be anxious 
about me at all, for several days, anyway, because 
of the letters Benedict had written and had made 
me write to Mr. Lally, and I guess it would have 
been quite a while, too, before either he or Aunt 
Margaret would have wondered where I was, but 
for one thing, and that was the counterfeit two- 
dollar bill. It was very queer, but it just hap- 
pened that I had used that very bill to pay for the 


That Two-Dollar Bill 297 
feed and keeping of the pony at Frayne the day I 
was there. The fact that it was a counterfeit 
wasn't noticed at first, of course, but when the 
livery keeper went to put some money in the bank 
next day the bank people told him the two-dollar 
bill was bad. 

Well, he remembered where he had got it, be- 
cause it was the only two-dollar bill he had, and 
he knew I had been visiting Flora ; 30, as he hap- 
pened to know Flora, he asked her about it right 
away that morning. And then all the rest had 
happened quickly, because Flora remembered my 
adventure with the negro. She called up the hotel 
at Little Fern, and tried to get me, and somebody 
who knew told her I had left the day before to 
go home to Aunt Margaret's. That startled her, 
and so she asked for Mr. Tally, and talked to him. 
And before they got through, Mr. Tally was so 
scared that he telegraphed to Aunt Margaret to 
ask if I was there, and then the whole thing came 
out. Rick told right away all about the cave and 
all, and that made them believe I must be up there, 


298 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

because the letters to Mr. Lally were false. And 
right in the middle of the excitement, in came 
Captain Benson, in answer to my letter and 
Flora’s. The result of it all was that they had 
come just in time to the rocks, and had caught 
Morse and Benedict, and were ready to take care 
of me. 

Well, that’s about all of that adventure. The 
boat took us all back down to the lake to our 
camp, and there I found Flora, and even Aunt 
Margaret, waiting for me, and when we came in 
at the dock by the hotel, I guess all the resorters 
on Little Fern Lake were there, and they cheered 
and cheered. And, I tell you, the boys were in- 
terested, and I had to tell everybody over and over 
the whole story from beginning to end. And you 
can be pretty sure there wasn’t anybody calling 
me Fido then. 

Of course they sent Morse back to prison, and 
of course Benedict went, too, this time, though he 
went to a United States prison instead of the 
State penitentiary, because counterfeiting is break- 


That Two-Dollar Bill 299 
ing United States laws. And I guess neither one 
of them will get away. They never have caught 
either Castle or Vilas, for they both disappeared. 
But when I knew Morse was behind bars again, 
I felt safe once more, and, oh, so glad to be with 
my friends. 

Father and mother didn’t know anything about 
it all till they got back from England in Septem- 
ber, because I asked Mr. Lally and Aunt Mar- 
garet not to let them hear. I knew mother would 
be awfully worried about me if they knew. 

But it wasn’t till I went back to St. Croix in 
the fall that we ever flew the kite we made out 
of newspapers that first day we learned that 
Morse had escaped, and after flying it just once 
I wouldn’t any more, for I was afraid we might 
lose it some time. And so I put it away and kept 
it. And I’ve got it yet, too. 

Of course we have visited the cave in the Little 
Fern Valley lots of times since. People had been 
there before, you know, but somehow it had hap- 
pened that nobody had ever known of the cave or 


300 The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 
thought anything much about the pool till Rick 
and I found out about it. And once we took a lot 
of fishlines and a weight with us to measure the 
depth of the pool. The men had told me it was 
bottomless, you know, but anybody knows any 
pool like that must have some bottom somewhere, 
no matter how deep it may be. And we found a 
bottom, too, but I tell you it scared me before we 
did find it, for that pool was eighty-two feet deep 
from the edge of the den floor. And now people 
go there, lots of them, every summer, to see the 
place; and because of the things that happened 
there, and because the water is so deep, they call 
it ‘‘The Cave of the Bottomless Pool.** 


THE END 


I 




By HENRY GARDNER HUNTING 

Witter Whitehead’s Own Story 


About a Lucky Splash of Whitewash, Some Stolen 
Silver, and a House that Wasn’t Vacant 

Illustrated by H. S. DeLAY. $1.25 

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The Cave of the Bottomless Pool 

A Sequel to “Witter Whitehead’s Own Story.” Illustrated by 
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By CHARLES P. BURTON 


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IllusUated by GEORGE A. WILLIAMS. l2mo. $1.25 

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tional songs with music, and index. Large i2mo, each 
$1.75 net; by mail, $1.90. Each in special library bind- 
ings, 10 cents net additional. 

ROY AND RAY IN CANADA 

The volume embodies very much that is interesting 
concerning Canadian history, manners and customs, as 
well as descriptions that describe and pictures that 
really illustrate. The book will be useful as a travel 
guide, but it is primarily intended to cover a hitherto 
neglected field and should be particularly useful to 
teachers and school children. 

“ Until the appearance of this book there was really nothing 
to give children in the States a genuine view of life across the 
borders.” — The Journal of Education. 

“ This volume, with its fine illustrations and comprehensive 
descriptions, is of much value. Enough narrative and action to 
make it interesting to every clailCi.*'— Springfield Republican. 

ROY AND RAY IN MEXICO 

A story of Mexican travel for children. Roy and Ray 
Stevens, twins “ going on twelve,’' with their parents, 
spend a summer in Mexico. The book tells from the 
children’s standpoint what they see and do, and what 
they learn about Mexico. 

“ Will be welcome to many readers of mature years as well as 
to the juveniles for whom it is primarily written. ... It deserves 
the widest circulation in this country, and no public library can 
afford to be without it."— Boston Transcript. 

“Very bright and accurate. . . . All the novel sights of this 
tropical land come before the vision of these children like a 
moving-picture show. They visit eight cities, and what they 
don’t see is not worth telling about. . . . Pictures are good and 
really illustrate."— Mexican Herald (City of Mexico). 


If the reader will send his name and address the publishers will 
send, from time to time, information about their new books. 


Henry Holt and Company, York*' 


By CARROLL WATSON RANKIN 
THREE STORIES FOR GIRLS 


Dandelion Cottage 

Illustrated by Mmes. Shinn and Finley. $1.50 

Four young girls secure the use of a tumble-down 
cottage. They set up housekeeping under numerous 
disadvantages, and have many amusements and queer 
experiences. 

“ A capital story. It is refreshing to come upon an author who 
can tell us about real little girls, with sensible, ordinary parents, 
girls who are neither phenomenal nor silly. Simple, wholesome, 
and withal most QntQvta.min^."— Outlook. 

The Adopting of Rosa Marie 

A sequel to “ Dandelion Cottage.” Illustrated 

by Mrs. Shinn. $1.50 

The little girls, who played at keeping house in the 
earlier book, enlarge their activities to the extent of 
playing mother to a little Indian girl. The results are 
highly entertaining. 

‘‘ Those who have read ' Dandelion Cottage ’ will need no urging 
to follow further. ... A lovable group of four real children, 
happily not perfect, but full of girlish plans and pranks. ... A 
delightful sense of hvLmov."— Boston Transcript. 

“ Four delightfully natural and likable little girls , . . good, 
wholesome, absorbing stories that Mrs. Rankin deserves credit 
for writing and which fun-loving adults will enjoy no less than 
the young Chicago Record- Herald. 

The Girls of Gardenville 

Illustrated by Mary Wellman. i2mo. $1.50 

Interesting, amusing, and natural stories of a girls’ 
club — “ The Sweet Sixteen ” of Gardenville. 

" Will captivate as many adults as if it were written for them. 
. . . The secret of Mrs. Rankin’s charm is her naturalness . . . real 
girls. .. not young ladies with ‘ pigtails,’ but girls of sixteen who 
are not twenty-five ... as original as amusing . . . positively re- 
freshing.”— Transcript. 


If the reader will send his name and address the publishers will 
send, from time to time, information about their new books. 

Henry Holt and Company, ^NYWYork’'' 


THE LUCK OF THE DUDLEY 
GRAHAMS 

By ALICE CALHOUN HAINES 
Illustrated by Francis Day. $j.yo 

A charming story of family life, enlightened by 
humor and an airship. 

“ Among the very best of books for young folks. Appeals es- 
pecially to girls.” — Wisconsin List for Township Libraries. 

“ Promises to be perennially popular ; a family of happy, 
healthy, inventive, bright children.” — Christian Register. 

“ By far the most entertaining book for children that we have 
read in many months . . . this healthy little book contains a 
genuine literary style, irresistible humor, and a train of episodes 
which cannot fail to hold the attention and delight the hearts of 
young readers.”— Churchman. 


DADDY^S DAUGHTERS 

By MARION A. TAGGART 
Illustrated by G. W. Breck, Si-So 

Daddy,” an admirable, patient, “literary” man, 
and four girls, his daughters, are distinctly individual- 
ized. More girls live on the other side of Daddy’s gar- 
den hedge and have three jolly brothers. 

“ A lot of sound, hearty children provide the proper sort of 
fun.”— A^. Y. Sun. 

“ Miss Taggart’s pleasant story is admirably adapted, not only 
to the tastes but also to the needs of young girls. May be heart- 
ily commended."— Providence Journal. 


NUT BROWN JOAN 

By MARION A. TAGGART 
Frontispiece and decorations by Blanche Ostertag.$i.so 

Joan is an energetic, lovable girl, who has all the fun 
and most of the troubles of a member of a large family. 

“A wholesome and pretty story of a family of young people 
not the least attractive of whom is their ugly duckling, Nut 
Brown Joan. Her pleasant fellowship with a boy nicknamed 
Darby is one of the nice things in this little homely history.”— 
Outlook. 

” A story for older girls, well worth while, and one which it will 
be well to bear in mind for a gift at the holiday season.” — 
Brooklyn Eagle. 

Henry Holt and Company 

Publishers New York 


In the American Nature Series 


For Boys and Girls from g to i6 
INSECT STORIES 


By VERNON L. KELLOGG, author of “American 
Insects,” etc. Illustrated, 298 pp., large icmo, $1.50 net, 
by mail $1.62. 

Strange, true stories, primarily for children, but cer- 
tainly for those grown-ups who like to read discriminat- 
ingly to their children, finding all the time something 
of point of view or allusion especially for themselves. 

“ The author is among the few scientific writers of distinction 
who can interest the popular mind. No intelligent youth can fail 
to read it with delight and profit.”— Nation. 

” They have that rare quality possessed by Kipling’s ‘ Jungle 
Stories,’ which make them enjoyed by both old and young.”— 
New York Globe. 

” A learned and undisputed insect authority . . . presents a 
group of strange, true stories of insect life, primarily for young 
folks, but open to grown-up nature lovers, that are little short 
of fascinating.”— Record-Herald. 


THE FRESH-WATER AQUARIUM AND ITS 


INHABITANTS 


A Guide for the Amateur Aquarist, by OTTO EGGE- 
LINGand FREDERICK EHRENBERG. With 100 
illustrations, large i2mo, probable price, $1.75 net. 

This volume gives clear and complete instructions to 
the amateur. It describes, and illustrates by some of 
the finest photographs ever taken from life, the great 
variety of plants, fishes, turtles, frogs, and insects that 
may be kept indoors in health and contentment. It 
furnishes information concerning food, treatment in 
health and sickness, methods of capture and handling, 
and what aquatic creatures will or will not live in peace 
together. 

“ Gives all the necessary information for maintainingany kind 
of an a.(\vi2ix'\yxvci.''— Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

‘‘Applicable to the smallest boy’s essay at keeping an aquarium 
and to the largest scientific collection .”— York Sun. 


If the reader will send his name and address the publishers will 
send, from time to time, information about their new books. 



Holt and Company, York' 





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